If you think the disagreements among states today regarding political issues are unique in American history, well, you’re wrong.

As the nation begins Daylight Saving Time this weekend, there’s still controversy about the measure, with some states wanting none of the clock switch, others wanting DST all year round. But it’s nothing like its 20th century history or early America when there was an even bigger time bomb.

In the first two centuries of the nation, each town set the time according to the location of the sun.

I’m serious.

What was worse, differences between geographic areas were unbelievably complex, measured in minutes and even seconds.

Martins Ferry had a slightly different time than Columbus, located 150 miles away. With the arrival of the railroad in the early 19th century, time became a twilight zone for travelers, who had to change their watches several times even during a short trip.

So railroad officials took time into their own hands and called a time convention in October 1883. The result: Railway Standard Time, which divided the nation into five time zones. Communities were urged to accept the new system, which began at high noon on Sunday, November 18, 1883.

But it remained controversial. As one cynic suggested: “The planets must, in the future, make their circuits by such timetables as the railroad magnates arrange.”

Congress didn’t approve the railway scheme of standard time until 1918 during World War I, the same year the august body put into effect DST, a conservation effort for the home front that President Woodrow Wilson loved — so much so that he vetoed a return to standard time twice. But Congress — you guessed it —overrode both vetoes.

But some areas agreed with Wilson. In Colorado, for instance, Denver kept daylight saving after war’s end, with other cities in the states turning back their clocks, making business activity in the state a nightmare.

Other states hated monkeying with Mother Nature. Connecticut in 1923 mandated standard time 365 days a year after a bitter fight between advocates of DST, mostly city dwellers, and opponents, largely farmers. The latter won, with a stinging law that stipulated that violators could wind up paying $100 in fines or 10 days in jail.

The gist of the law, upheld by the state supreme court, outlawed any “willful display in any public building, street, avenue, or public highway of any time-measuring instrument or device, which is calculated or intended to furnish time to the general public, set or running so as to indicate any other than standard time.”

No matter.

World War II saw Congress implementing DST once more. Although some Americans called it “Victory Time,” others saw patriotic conservation in a much longer war giving way to second thoughts, especially in rural states.

“Your net gain” said one farm state congressman, “is fatigue for the farmer.”

The year 1943 was a very bad year for DST. Georgia was the first state to clean the federal government’s clock, defiantly turning back its timepieces one hour except for four cities that chose otherwise. Michigan followed.

As Ohio moved toward standard time, the Justice Department tried to cut the time bandits off at the courts. But the judiciary was slow to act and so was Congress, and World War II came to an end before any resolution, with all areas of the nation supposed to turn back clocks on September 30, 1945. Except for Chicago. It waited until October 28.

During the first postwar spring in 1946, standard time prevailed in most states. A handful went to DST, a few more put their major cities on the springing-forward clock. And there were still others that permitted local option. Any which way, it was a confusing mess, especially as Americans began moving around the country, thanks to ever increasing numbers of trains, planes and automobiles.

Not until 1966 did Congress get around to putting the matter on its calendar, coming up with the Uniform Time Act. But the law was a misnomer, providing for local exceptions and with a narrow time frame: the last Sunday in April to the last Sunday in October. Twenty years later, another law, with the system beginning the first Sunday in April.

Subsequent legislation would give us the current parameters, the second Sunday in March to the first Sunday in November. But the system still isn’t timely. The best time to start saving light, as any early riser knows, is the first week in February.

Maybe it’s time for another time convention?

Thomas V. DiBacco is professor emeritus at American University in Washington, D.C. He grew up in Bellaire and Shayside and delivered The Times Leader for a short time.