Daylight Saving Time (April 30, 1916)

In the middle of the Great War, Germany decided to get a jump on their enemies by moving their clocks forward by an hour. I’m not sure if they changed their time at midnight or 2 a.m. but even at 2 a.m. there is an interesting aspect in the event chart.

Funny point: my computer program didn’t indicate that the German state had moved the clocks onward by one hour on that date. The chart, shown above, is based on the normal way we change the time at 2 a.m. But research shows that originally the change would have happened at midnight. Here’s what that event chart would look like.

See the changes? Now, instead of a Sun inconjunct Midheaven, there is a Neptune inconjunct Ascendant, which makes more sense if the Germans were trying to get ahead of the Allies.

Anyway, for many countries, this now happens with regularity every spring (forward) and fall (back).

Not to put too fine a point on it: the implication is that the Germans actually changed the time at the end of the day, not at the beginning, so that May 1st would be the first full day under Daylight Savings. And my confirmation of that fact was yet another chart that was timed for 1 a.m. on May 1st. This time the computer program showed that the chart was under DST.

Isn’t astrology fun?