When did daylight saving time start?

Daylight saving time is a practice of setting the clock forward by one hour during the summer months to extend the period of daylight in the evening. The idea behind daylight saving time was first proposed by Benjamin Franklin in 1784, but it wasn’t until the 20th century that the concept was widely adopted. The first country to implement daylight saving time was Germany in 1916, during World War I, as a way to conserve energy. The United States followed suit the same year, and many other countries soon followed.