Daylight Saving Time Trivia
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49 free Daylight Saving Time trivia questions with answers — science & nature quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
42 free Daylight Saving Time trivia questions with answers. Daylight savings time trivia (yes, it is properly 'saving', and that is question two) for the two nights a year everyone argues about it. The quiz covers where the idea came from - Franklin's joke, a bug-collecting New Zealander, a British builder on horseback - which countries went first, America's War Time and the failed 1974 experiment, why Arizona and Hawaii sit it out, the Navajo-Hopi doughnut, the EU's stalled vote, Russia's flip-flop, and the places with a 30-minute change or a Ramadan pause. It starts with the mnemonic everybody knows and works up to the dates, laws and percentages that only a time-zone nerd could love. Use it for a classroom, a spring-forward quiz night, or to win the annual office argument. Every answer has been checked against a reference page and carries its source.
30 of 49 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which mnemonic reminds you which way to move the clocks?
Spring forward, fall back
'Spring forward, fall back': clocks jump ahead an hour in spring and drop back an hour in autumn, the season Americans call fall.
Q 02Which US federal department oversees time zones and daylight saving observance?
The Department of Transportation
The Department of Transportation regulates US time zone boundaries and daylight saving observance, a duty inherited from the Interstate Commerce Commission; states petition it to move between zones.
Q 03Which countries were the first to adopt daylight saving nationally, on 30 April 1916?
Germany and Austria-Hungary
Germany and Austria-Hungary moved their clocks forward on 30 April 1916 to conserve wartime coal; Britain followed on 21 May the same year.
Q 04Which Ontario city was the first in the world to enact daylight saving, in 1908?
Port Arthur
Port Arthur, on Lake Superior, put its clocks forward on 1 July 1908; it merged with neighbouring Fort William in 1970 to form Thunder Bay.
Q 05What did Benjamin Franklin's satirical 1784 Journal de Paris letter actually propose?
Taxing shutters and firing cannons at dawn
Taxing shutters and firing cannons at dawn were among his mock remedies for Parisians who slept through the morning sun; Franklin never suggested moving the clocks.
Q 06British builder William Willett got the idea for daylight saving while doing what?
Riding early and seeing blinds still down
Riding early and seeing blinds still down on a summer morning near Petts Wood convinced Willett that daylight was being wasted; his 1907 pamphlet was called The Waste of Daylight.
Q 07How much did William Willett originally propose advancing the clocks each spring?
80 minutes, in 20-minute steps
80 minutes, in 20-minute steps on four April Sundays, was Willett's 1907 scheme; he died in 1915, a year before Britain adopted a simpler one-hour change.
Q 08Which rock frontman is William Willett's great-great-grandson?
Chris Martin of Coldplay
Chris Martin of Coldplay is a direct descendant of Willett, the Chislehurst builder whose 1907 pamphlet The Waste of Daylight launched the campaign for lighter evenings.
Q 09The United States first adopted daylight saving time in which year?
1918
The Standard Time Act of 1918 introduced daylight saving and confirmed the US time zones; Congress repealed the clock change in 1919 over President Wilson's veto.
Q 10What did Franklin D. Roosevelt call the year-round daylight saving he instituted in February 1942?
War Time
It ran until September 1945; the zones were literally called Eastern War Time, Central War Time and so on.
Q 11Which 1966 US law first standardised the start and end dates of daylight saving across the country?
The Uniform Time Act
The Uniform Time Act ended the patchwork in which states and even towns picked their own dates, while letting a state exempt itself entirely by law.
Q 12What happened to public support for year-round daylight saving over the winter of the 1974 US trial?
It fell from 79% to 42%
It fell from 79% to 42% within weeks of the January 1974 start; dark mornings and reports of children struck by cars on the way to school ended the experiment that October.
Q 13Which US law, effective 2007, extended daylight saving to run from March to November?
Q 21On which dates have all EU countries changed their clocks together since 1996?
Last Sundays of March and October
Last Sundays of March and October, fixed by an EU directive that took effect in 1996 after years in which the autumn date varied between member states.
Q 22A 2018 EU public consultation on scrapping the clock change drew how many responses?
4.6 million
4.6 million replies, a record for an EU consultation; most came from Germany and 84 percent wanted the clock changes scrapped.
Q 23What happened to the European Parliament's March 2019 vote to end seasonal clock changes?
The Energy Policy Act of 2005
The Energy Policy Act of 2005 set the change to the second Sunday of March and the first Sunday of November, taking effect in 2007.
Q 14For roughly what share of the year is the United States on daylight saving time?
About 65%
About 65% of the year: 34 weeks or 238 days from the second Sunday of March to the first Sunday of November, leaving standard time the minority.
Q 15Which two US states do not observe daylight saving time?
Arizona and Hawaii
Arizona and Hawaii opted out under federal law, Hawaii in 1967 and Arizona in 1968; Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, the Northern Marianas and the US Virgin Islands also skip it.
Q 16Which territory inside Arizona does observe daylight saving time?
The Navajo Nation
The Hopi Reservation, entirely surrounded by the Navajo Nation, does not - creating a doughnut of clocks within a doughnut.
Q 17Why does Arizona stay on standard time all year?
Its heat makes evening sun unwelcome
Its heat makes evening sun unwelcome: an extra hour of summer daylight means more air-conditioning, so the legislature opted out in 1968, and from March to November most of Arizona matches California's clock.
Q 18Which US state did not observe daylight saving statewide until April 2006?
Indiana
Indiana straddles the Eastern and Central zones; several counties near Cincinnati and Louisville had quietly observed DST anyway.
Q 19How did the Sunshine Protection Act, making daylight saving permanent, pass the Senate in 2022?
By unanimous consent
By unanimous consent, on 15 March 2022, with several senators later admitting they had not noticed the request; sponsored by Florida's Marco Rubio, it then stalled in the House.
Q 20As of 2023, roughly what proportion of the world's countries use daylight saving time?
About a third
About a third, roughly 70 of the world's 195 or so countries, concentrated in Europe and North America; most of Asia and Africa never adopted it or dropped it.
The Council never approved it
The Council never approved it: member states could not agree on whether to keep summer or winter time, so the file stalled after the Parliament's 2019 vote.
Q 24Which of these European countries keeps the same clock all year, never springing forward?
Iceland
Iceland sits on GMT all year despite lying far enough west for UTC-1, which gives it light summer evenings anyway; Ireland, Norway and Portugal all shift their clocks.
Q 25What did Russia do in 2011, then reverse in 2014?
Adopt permanent daylight saving time
Adopt permanent daylight saving time: under President Medvedev the clocks went forward in March 2011 and stayed; in October 2014 Russia moved back an hour to permanent standard time.
Q 26What was Britain's 1941–1945 scheme of running clocks two hours ahead of GMT called?
British Double Summer Time
British Double Summer Time put clocks at GMT+2 each summer from 1941 to 1945; Britain later tried year-round GMT+1 from 1968 to 1971 as 'British Standard Time' and abandoned it.
Q 27Which Australian states do NOT observe daylight saving?
Queensland, NT and Western Australia
Queensland, NT and Western Australia stay on standard time; Queenslanders voted daylight saving down 54.5 to 45.5 in a 1992 referendum after a three-year trial, and WA rejected it in 2009.
Q 28In the Southern Hemisphere, when does daylight saving run in the states of Australia that use it?
First Sunday of October to first Sunday of April
First Sunday of October to first Sunday of April, agreed by the participating states from 2008; Australians spring forward as Europeans fall back.
Q 29Lord Howe Island, off Australia, is unusual for a daylight saving shift of how much?
30 minutes
30 minutes: clocks go from UTC+10:30 to UTC+11 in summer, making Lord Howe Island one of the very few places with a half-hour change.
Q 30Which country observes daylight saving every month except one, pausing it for Ramadan?
Morocco
Morocco made GMT+1 its standard time in October 2018 and drops back to GMT for the fasting month each year, so its clocks change twice annually around Ramadan.