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Between the first and third centuries CE, the Roman Empire gradually replaced the eight-day Roman nundinal cycle with the seven-day week. The earliest evidence for this new system is a Pompeiian graffito referring to 6 February (ante diem viii idus Februarias) of the year 60 CE as dies solis ("Sunday"). [3]
Friedrich Delitzsch and others suggested that the seven-day week being approximately a quarter of a lunation is the implicit astronomical origin of the seven-day week, [23] and indeed the Babylonian calendar used intercalary days to synchronize the last week of a month with the new moon. [24]
Likewise, the Modern Hebrew name for Monday is yom-sheni (יום שני). While in North America, Sunday is the first day of the week, the Geneva-based International Organization for Standardization places Monday as the first day of the week in its ISO 8601 standard. Monday is xīngqīyī (星期一) in Chinese, meaning "day one of the week".
In many European countries, calendars show Monday as the first day of the week, [11] which follows the ISO 8601 standard. In the Persian calendar, used in Iran and Afghanistan, Sunday is the second day of the week. However, it is called "number one" as counting starts from zero; the first day - Saturday - is denoted as day zero.
In some Muslim countries, Saturday is the first day of the week and thus Tuesday is the fourth day of the week. The English name is derived from Middle English Tewesday, from Old English Tiwesdæg meaning "Tīw's Day", the day of Tiw or Týr, the god of single combat, law, and justice in Norse mythology. Tiw was equated with Mars in the ...
Their efforts came to fruition when President Jimmy Carter issued the first Presidential Proclamation declaring the week of March 2-8, 1980 as National Women’s History Week.
The Finnish name is keskiviikko ('middle of the week'), as is the Icelandic name: miðvikudagur, and the Faroese name: mikudagur ('mid-week day'). Some dialects of Faroese have ónsdagur, though, which shares etymology with Wednesday. Danish, Norwegian, Swedish onsdag, (Ons-dag meaning Odens dag 'Odin's day').
Holiday names are usually pretty straightforward. New Year's, Thanksgiving and — perhaps least creatively, the 4th of July — all have origins that are fairly easy to figure out.