It’s been called the fourth dimension and it’s boggled thinkers for millennia. We’re talking about time, and just in case you weren’t aware of this already, we’re losing an hour of it this weekend thanks to Daylight Saving Time (DST). How and when did people come up with this curious system? Believe it or not, Benjamin Franklin first proposed such an idea back in 1784 as a way to cut down on the use of candles.

Despite Franklin’s foresight, more than a century went by before the idea took hold. First off, it’s important to note that countries didn’t begin standardizing their time until the development of railroads made it necessary in the 19th century.

As the California Energy Commission explains, it took a world war to push countries into adopting a DST system. In an effort to save precious energy resources during World War I, the United States (as well as several other countries) switched to DST.