from above "...but I'm certain one other country has something similar." That would maybe be Canada ? where DST was "invented" and implemented to give the outside workers an early start and "centralize" the daylight hours. At the peak of the winter season, daylight falls, for most of the populated portion of the country, between 0800h and 1600h. Which means, of course, that you go to work in the dark and knock off in the dark, having put in a days work while it was nice for doing other things. It gets so dreary that the only reason we don't have so many acts of random violence and so much crime as "down south" is that it's too f***ing cold and dark during the off hours. You think we are soooo polite and friendly as Canucks ? No, we're just so f***ing bored that we greet each other with joy just to have someone to talk to... if we can see each other through the darkness and snow.