Benjamin Franklin did not invent Daylight Savings Time.​

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Benjamin Franklin is often mistakenly credited with the invention of Daylight Saving Time but his actual contribution was a satirical essay advocating for earlier rising to save on candle usage.

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Ben Franklin joked about changing the clocks with the seasons as a money-saver, and a way to gain more time in a work day. And he mocked people who wasted morning sunlight. 

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Oblige a man to rise at four in the morning, and it is more than probable he will go willingly to bed at eight in the evening; and, having had eight hours sleep, he will rise more willingly at four in the morning following.”​

 

He wrote that the amount of sunlight that goes wasted each morning would likely come as a shock to readers who "have never seen any signs of sunshine before noon."

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In one prophetic passage, he pitched the idea as a money-saver (though at the time people would have been conserving candle wax rather than electricity).​

 

While he might have made some practical points, Franklin might have been poking fun at the French for being lazy.