* * * * *

          “Programmically dealing with time can lead to madness … ”

I quickly decided not to include Daylight Saving Time and timezone
information [1] for each city. In looking over what needs to be done, I
realized that it's just way too much work for so little in return.

I'm not trying to handle the timezones automatically since ther's no clear-
cut method to determine where a timezone is. While nominally the timezones
are all 15 degrees apart, one just can't use that fact to determine the
timezones since there are regional variations. For instance, Mountain (which
is seven hours west of Greenwich) is located between 97°30′W and 112°′W and
while it would be nice if one could say, “Yes, White Bird, Idaho [2], which
is located at 116°17′56″ is in the Pacific Time Zone.” But you can't because
White Bird is in Mountain, while 28 miles south is Riggins [3], at 116°18′53″
which is in the Pacific Time Zone (I think—according to my map, the time zone
border runs just along the northern edge of Riggins).

It'd be a lot of work to work out which town is in which timezone for a given
state if said state actually straddles two timezones (which looks to be about
thirteen states).

Daylight Saving Time is a bit easier. Most of the United States follows DST
(Daylight Saving Time) and given that it starts on the last Sunday of April
and ends on the last Sunday of October, it's easy enough to check.

But the following areas in the US (United States) do not follow DST: Hawaii
[4], Indiana [5] except for Jasper County [6], Lake County [7], LaPorte
County [8], Newton County [9], Porter County [10] (which are in Central
Standard Time or Central Daylight Time depending upon the time of year),
Dearborn County [11], Clark County [12], Floyd County [13] and Harrison
County [14] (which are in Easter Standard Time or Easter Daylight Time),
Arizona [15] (with the exception of the Navajo Indian Reservation [16], given
it spans three states), American Samoa [17], Guam [18], Puerto Rico [19] and
the Virgin Islands [20].

But the history of Daylight Saving Time is interesting and yet maddening (and
yes, I do have to track Daylight Saving Time in the past unfortunately).
Daylight Saving Time has not always been around although the idea was first
presented by Benjamin Franklin [21]. England [22] was the first county to
formally encode into law Daylight Saving Time (went into effect May 21, 1916)
followed a few years later by the United States (into effect March 31, 1918),
and over the following few decades went into and out of law several times. In
researching this, I did create the following table of DST dates:

Table: Daylight Saving Time throughout US History
Year(s) Start   End     Notes
------------------------------
1776–1917     —     —     US did not have DST at this time.
1918    Mar 31  Oct 31  Instituded by Woodrow Wilson for World War I.
1919    Mar 31  Oct 31
1920–1941     —     —     DST Repealed by US, with the exception of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York City, Philadelphia and Chicago
1942    Feb 9   —     Franklin Roosevelt signed into law “War Time” which put the US into Daylight Saving Time from Feb 9, 1942 until Sep 30, 1945.
1943    —     —
1944    —     —
1945    —     Sep 30
1946–1965     —     —     No US law at this time; states and municipalities were free to use DST as they saw fit.
1966–1973     last Sunday of April    last Sunday of October
1974    Jan 6   Oct 31  Due to the OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) crisis of 1973, Congress passed the DST Energy Act, which mandated a longer period for DST for the next two years
1975    Feb 23  Oct 31  The DST Energy Act was repealed and DST went back to the normal schedule
1976–1986     last Sunday of April    last Sunday of October
1987-present    first Sunday of April   last Sunday of October  In 1986, Regan signed into law a modification of the DST Act, moving the start of Daylight Saving to the first Sunday of April.

------------------------------
Year(s) Start   End     Notes
Determining whether a location observed DST in the past is not easy (unless
you know from personal experience) so again, this is left to the user to
indicate such information (although from 1987 onwards can be done through
software).

[1] gopher://gopher.conman.org/0Phlog:2004/10/13.1
[2] http://www.ohwy.com/id/w/whitebir.htm
[3] http://www.rigginsidaho.com/
[4] http://www.hawaii.gov/portal/
[5] http://www.in.gov/
[6] http://www.stats.indiana.edu/profiles/pr18073.html
[7] http://www.lakecountyin.org/
[8] http://www.laportecountycvb.com/
[9] http://www.stats.indiana.edu/profiles/pr18111.html
[10] http://www.co.porter.in.us/
[11] http://www.dearborncounty.org/
[12] http://www.co.clark.in.us/
[13] http://www.floydcounty.in.gov/
[14] http://www.harrisoncounty.in.gov/government.html
[15] http://www.az.gov/webapp/portal/
[16] http://www.navajo.org/
[17] http://www.government.as/
[18] http://ns.gov.gu/
[19] http://welcome.topuertorico.org/
[20] http://www.usvi.net/
[21] http://webexhibits.org/daylightsaving/franklin.html
[22] http://webexhibits.org/daylightsaving/c.html

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