Today is the beginning of Daylight Saving Time, time for moving the clocks one hour ahead. The exceptions are Arizona, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and American Samoa. Credit for Daylight Saving Time belongs to Benjamin Franklin, who first suggested the idea in 1784. The idea was revived in 1907, when William Willett, an Englishman, proposed a similar system in the pamphlet The Waste of Daylight. The Germans were the first to officially adopt the light-extending system in 1915 as a fuel-saving measure during World War I. The British switched one year later, and the United States followed in 1918, when Congress passed the Standard Time Act, which established our time zones. This experiment lasted only until 1920, when the law was repealed due to opposition from dairy farmers (cows don’t pay attention to clocks). During World War II, Daylight Saving Time was imposed once again (this time year-round) to save fuel.
Daily Calendar for Sunday, March 9, 2025
Born
- Amerigo Vespucci (merchant & navigator) –
- Edwin Forrest (Shakespearean actor) –
- Will Geer (actor) –
- Samuel Barber (composer) –
- Mickey Spillane (author) –
- Yuri Gagarin (first human to travel in space) –
- Raul Julia (actor) –
- Mark Lindsay (musician; member of Paul Revere & the Raiders ) –
- Bobby Fischer (champion chess player) –
- Charles Gibson (journalist) –
- David Hume Kennerly (photographer) –
- Juliette Binoche (actress) –
- Emmanuel Lewis (actor) –
- Lil' Bow Wow (rapper, actor) –
- Sunisa "Suni" Lee (Olympic gymnast) –
Died
- Charles Bukowski (poet) –
- Fernando Rey (actor) –
- George Burns (comedian & actor) –
- Chris LeDoux (country musician) –
- Brad Delp (musician) –
- Doris "Granny D" Haddock (political activist) –
Events
- Napoleon Bonaparte married Josephine de Beauharnais in Paris—he arrived two hours late for the wedding–
- President James Monroe’s daughter, Maria, became the first daughter of a president to be married in the White House–
- A patent for artificial teeth was granted to Charles Graham of New York–
- Abraham Lincoln announced he was running for his first political office. He failed for his bid for a seat in the Illinois legislature–
- First Japanese Ambassador to U.S. arrived in San Francisco, CA–
- Battle of U.S.S. Monitor and U.S.S. Merrimack (renamed C.S.S. Virginia) ended in a draw–
- First V-8 Ford was built by Ford Motor Company–
- The Hundred Days began. President FDR pushed sweeping social and economic reforms of the New Deal through Congress within the next 100 days–
- Journalist Edward R. Murrow accused Sen. McCarthy of misleading the U.S. public and persecuting Congressional witnesses–
- Celebrity premiere of East of Eden, the film version of John Stienbeck’s novel–
- Barbie doll debuted–
- The first animal to return from space was a dog whose Russian name translated as Blackie, aboard the Soviet spacecraft Sputnik 9–
- The Smothers Brothers’ television show was cancelled after they refused to censor a comment made by Joan Baez. She wanted to dedicate her song to her husband, David, who was about to go to jail for objecting to the draft–
- Work began on the 789-mile Alaskan oil pipeline, the largest private construction project in U.S. history–
- Health and Welfare Canada banned saccharin as a food additive–
- Anne M. Burford was forced to resign as head of the EPA following a dispute with Congress over the agency’s enforcement of toxic waste regulations–
- Paul McCartney, John Lennon, Carole King, Gerry Goffin, and Carole Bayer Sager were inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame–
- President George H. W. Bush’s nominee for defense secratary, John Tower, lost Senate ratification vote–
- Chris Bertish, a South African surfer, paddleboarded across the Atlantic solo. The 4,050 trek took him 93 days.–
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- Twelve-inch snowstorm in narrow band from Louisville, Kentucky, into Virginia and North Carolina’s mountains–
- Southern Indiana received up to 9 inches of snow–
