Year-round daylight saving time begins – Chicago Tribune

Today is Tuesday, Jan. 6, the sixth day of 2026. There are 359 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On Jan. 6, 1974, year-round daylight saving time began in the United States on a trial basis as a fuel-saving measure in response to the OPEC oil embargo. The country, however, returned to standard time in October, effectively ending the experiment.

Also on this date:

In 1919, former President Theodore Roosevelt died in Oyster Bay, New York, at age 60.

In 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, in his State of the Union address, outlined a goal of “Four Freedoms” — human rights worthy of defending universally: freedom of speech and expression, the freedom to worship God in one’s own way, freedom from want, and freedom from fear.

In 1982, truck driver William G. Bonin was convicted in Los Angeles of 10 of the “Freeway Killer” slayings of young men and boys. (Bonin was later convicted of four other killings; he was executed in 1996.)

In 1994, figure skater Nancy Kerrigan was clubbed on the leg by an assailant at Detroit’s Cobo Arena; four men, including the ex-husband of Kerrigan’s rival, Tonya Harding, went to prison for their roles in the attack. (Harding pleaded guilty to conspiracy to hinder prosecution but denied any advance knowledge about the assault.)

In 2005, former Ku Klux Klan leader Edgar Ray Killen was indicted on murder charges 41 years after three civil rights workers were killed in Mississippi. (Killen was later convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to 60 years in prison; he died in prison in 2018.)