why do we have british summer time?
367588
time zone BST is a summer daylight savings time...it is one hour ahead of the universal time. only used in the summer time.. appears to give you 1 hour extra daylight time ...when the winter time comes around the time is switched back to greenwich mean time. hope this helps you out.
1094734
Daylight savings time is a widely used system of adjusting the official local time forward, usually by one hour, from its official standard time for the summer months. This is intended to provide a better match between the hours of daylight and the active hours of work and school. The "saved" daylight is spent on evening activities which get more daylight, rather than being "wasted" while people sleep past dawn.\n\nEuropeans commonly refer to the system as summer time: Irish Summer Time, British Summer Time, and European Summer Time. This is reflected in the time zones names as well, e.g., Central European Time (CET) becomes Central European Summer Time (CEST).\n\nIt is sometimes asserted that DST was first proposed by Benjamin Franklin in a letter to the editors of the Journal of Paris. However, the article was humorous; Franklin was not proposing DST, but rather that people should get up and go to bed earlier.\n\nIt was first seriously proposed by William Willett in the "Waste of Daylight", published in 1907, but he was unable to get the British government to adopt it, despite considerable lobbying.\n\nThe idea of DST was first put into practice by the German government during the First World War, between April 30 and October 1, 1916. Shortly afterward, the United Kingdom followed suit, first adopting it between May 21 and October 1, 1916. On March 19, 1918, the U.S. Congress established several time zones (which had been in use by railroads and most cities since 1883) and made DST official, effective March 31, for the remainder of World War I. It was observed for seven months in 1918 and 1919. The law, however, proved so unpopular (mostly because people rose and went to bed earlier than in current times) that it was later repealed.\n\nDST is generally a temperate zone practice; day lengths in the tropics do not vary enough to justify DST. Hawaii and Arizona are the only U.S. states that do not observe DST.\n\nThe amount of the time shift varies, but one hour is the most common. The dates of the beginning and ending of DST also vary by country. With a few exceptions, switchovers between standard time and DST generally occur in the early hours of a Sunday morning, because doing so then causes less disruption than a change on a weekday would.\n\nDST commonly begins in the northern hemisphere on the last Sunday in March or the first Sunday in April, and ends on the last Sunday in October. However, beginning in 2007, the United States will begin observing DST from the second Sunday in March until the first Sunday in November. If no energy savings can be shown from the extension after the U.S. Department of Energy completes a study of impact of the change, Congress may revert back to the schedule set in 1986 under Section 110 of the Energy Policy Act of 2005. Since 2002, the European Union has fixed the last Sunday in March and the last Sunday in October as start and end dates (European Summer Time).\n\nIn the southern hemisphere, the beginning and ending dates are switched; therefore, the time difference between the United Kingdom and Chile may be 4, 5 or 6 hours, depending on the time of year.\n\nThe U.S. federal Uniform Time Act of 1966 mandated that DST begin nationwide on the last Sunday in April and end on the last Sunday in October, effective in 1967. Any state that wanted to be exempt from DST could do so by passing a state law, provided that it exempted the entire state. The law was amended in 1972 to permit states that straddle a time zone boundary to exempt the entire area of the state lying in one time zone. On July 8, 1986, President Ronald Reagan signed the Federal Fire Prevention and Control Act of 1986 into law, which amended the starting date of DST to the first Sunday in April, to take effect the following year.\n\nIn response to the 1973 energy crisis, DST in the United States began earlier in both 1974 and 1975, commencing on the first Sunday in January (January 6) in the former y
862790
Yes.  It's highest at noon (not counting Daylight Savings Time) on the first day of summer than any other time in the year.\n\nThis is due to the tilt of the Earth in relationship to the sun.  If you take a globe (or just a beach ball), you can see how it works for yourself.  In the summer, the Earth where you live is tilted towards the sun.  But as the Earth revolves around the sun, the part that's tilted toward the sun in the summer is titled away in the winter.\n\nUse a globe or a ball and walk around a table lamp.  Make sure you hold the globe tilted the same way as you walk around and you'll see what I mean.
288721
we do it at 2am tommorow morning in great britain,clocks go forward an hour
293133
It's called "Daylight Saving Time". It is believed to save electricity by prolonging the day with one hour.
798013
Why, aren't they two of the many regions that remain on "standard time" year-round? \n\nIt's controversial, but some people say this approach is the way of the future.
391070
I love daylight sayings time because it allows me to work longer hours during the spring and summer months when my business is real busy. The swimming pool biz. I can also work until 7 or 7:30 and still have an hour or an hour and a half of daylight when I get home. It also makes the weekends and days off longer to spend at the lake or river or where ever you are outdoors.
765271
Because some people cannot get up at the proper time of day to do their work they do not understand those who do.\n\nThere is the same number of hours of daylight either side of noon so adjust your day to suit that. There is no need to have British Summer Time, Daylight Saving Time, etc so stick to the natural time for your area of the world. That means GMT in the UK
1187
Each country is in charge of determining time zones and each have passed laws to create them. They chose where they should go so that noon would basically coincide with the sun's highest point in the sky.
1004550
Thats because changing the time has nothing to do with the seasons, its all to do with day length. It was actually abolished in the UK in the late 70's to see what would happen and it proved too dangerous...kids were going to school in the morning in total darkness during the winter.\nThey have it all over the world, its the same in the US, they just call it daylight saving time
898791
Because it's summer in the southern hemisphere
1134606
For generations they are hook to the football, where it was shown  prime time on TVs..where as the very interesting soccer matches from European leagues, especially the English league were shown live from 7am to 11am time zone, when they are still in bed or busy with their marketing chores! and all because of the geographical location of the USA..There might be some other reasons, but mine`s must be one of the reasons. I hope so!
221957
It has always seemed odd to me to have daylight savings time in the summer when the days are already naturally longer.  It is logical to me to at least try using it in the winter or not at all.
299562
Because it is a political decision and not a scientific decision. Daylight savings time is just the government's way of making you get up an hour early.
913486
Actually a good many countries around the world use the 24 hour clock system. Then there isn't a need to say AM or PM, you know whether its day or night. Also the military begins attacks, movements and such on Greenwich mean time, its a town in Britain. And its used so everyone that aware of an operation knows what time it begins regardless of what part of the world they are in.
243543
It was invented during world war 2 to increase production. It was called "war time". Basically instead of keeping to one time frame it has you start your day earlier in the summer and the "normal" time it would start in the winter by one hour. The idea was that if someone got to work earlier in the summer they would hopefully stay a little later since there was still daylight. It helped production by %5-10.
217739
I dont know.  How did the english get the world to go along with it?  Also why not have 12 hours of light and 12 hours of dark.  Instead they do 6am is sunrise.  Why not 1am sunrise and 1pm sunset.