On December 15, 1973, President Richard Nixon signed the Emergency Daylight Saving Time Energy Conservation Act. The law put the country on daylight saving time through the winter. It took effect on January 6, 1974.
A University of Chicago survey found that support for year-round daylight saving time fell from 79 percent in December to 42 percent in February. On October 5, 1974, President Gerald Ford signed an amendment that cut the experiment short.
The Twentieth Amendment to the Constitution sets the day and the hour when a new president takes over. “The terms of the President and Vice President shall end at noon on the 20th day of January… and the terms of their successors shall then begin.” The amendment was ratified in 1933.
A new president takes power on a date that everyone knows years in advance.
Americans who buy health insurance through the federal Marketplace can choose or change their plan once a year, during a period called Open Enrollment. For coverage in 2027, it begins on November 1, 2026.
A change at any other time needs a reason. HealthCare.gov explains that “life events or changes may open a Special Enrollment Period.” Its examples include “getting married or having a baby” and “moving or going away to school.”
American car makers have traditionally introduced a new model every year. One history of the industry explains the logic: “Now cars would have to be sold almost entirely to current car owners.”
The industry answered with what was “benignly called annual model changes and which critics termed ‘planned obsolescence.'” Alfred P. Sloan of General Motors often used another term, “dynamic obsolescence.”
On July 24, 1933, Franklin D. Roosevelt spoke in a fireside chat about “the crowding events of the hundred days which had been devoted to the starting of the wheels of the New Deal.”
Gallup calls the first months of a presidency “the honeymoon period.” It found that “all but Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter had higher approval ratings about 100 days after taking office” than at the start.
On October 1, 2003, Microsoft announced that it would release its security fixes on a fixed monthly schedule. The day became known as Patch Tuesday, the second Tuesday of each month. Microsoft said “patch timing was the number one customer request.”
Today more than 100 security fixes in one month is common. Fixes that cannot wait are released “out-of-band.”
The customers did not ask for software without flaws. They asked to know when the fixes would come.
The GPRA Modernization Act, signed on January 4, 2011, sets the planning calendar of federal agencies. Each agency’s strategic plan must cover at least four years. “As needed, the head of the agency may make adjustments to the strategic plan.”
Each agency also publishes a performance plan every year. Progress on the priority goals is reviewed “not less than quarterly.”
Every domestic American public company reports to investors by the quarter. It files a Form 10-Q for each of the first three quarters of its fiscal year, with unaudited financial statements, and an annual report on Form 10-K. Companies, analysts and the financial press speak of Q1, Q2, Q3 and Q4.
In September 2025 President Trump called for an end to quarterly reporting. On May 5, 2026, the Securities and Exchange Commission proposed letting companies file a semiannual report on a new Form 10-S. Under the proposal, a company that does not choose this option stays on quarterly reporting. As of October 2026 the proposal had not been adopted.
American companies run promotions on an annual or semi-annual calendar, with nomination packets, calibration meetings and published levels. Advancement is a scheduled institutional event with a process attached.
American consumer technology is sold on an annual or biennial refresh, with trade-in programmes and carrier subsidies structured around it. The replacement is planned by the buyer as well as the seller.