Interesting facts about Sunday

Sunday is the day of the week between Saturday and Monday.

According to the ISO 8601 international standard, it is the seventh day of the week. However, in the US, Canada, Japan and the Philippines as well as in South America, it’s counted as the first day of the week.

According to the Hebrew calendar and traditional calendars (including Christian calendars) Sunday is the first day of the weekQuaker Christians call Sunday the “first day” in accordance with their testimony of simplicity.

In many languages, the names given to the seven days of the week are derived from the names of the classical planets in Hellenistic astronomy, which were in turn named after contemporary deities, a system introduced by the Roman Empire during Late Antiquity.

The eanglish names of the day of the week were coined in the Roman era, in Greek and Latin.

The name “Sunday”, the day of the Sun, is derived from Hellenistic astrology, where the seven planets, known in English as Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, the Sun, Venus, Mercury and the Moon, each had an hour of the day assigned to them, and the planet which was regent during the first hour of any day of the week gave its name to that day. During the 1st and 2nd century, the week of seven days was introduced into Rome from Egypt, and the Roman names of the planets were given to each successive day.

The English noun “Sunday” derived sometime before 1250 from sunedai, which itself developed from Old English Sunnandæg, which is cognate to other Germanic languages, including Old Frisian sunnandei, Old Saxon sunnundag, Middle Dutch sonnendach – modern Dutch zondag, Old High German sunnun tag – modern German Sonntag, and Old Norse sunnudagr – Danish and Norwegian søndag, Icelandic sunnudagur and Swedish söndag. The Germanic term is a Germanic interpretation of Latin dies solis (“day of the sun”), which is a translation of the ancient Greek Hλίου ημέρα (Hēlíou hēméra). The p-Celtic Welsh language also translates the Latin “day of the sun” as dydd Sul.

In Russian the word for Sunday is Voskreseniye meaning “Resurrection”.

The Czech, Polish, Slovenian, Croatian, Serbian, Ukrainian and Belarusian words for Sunday – “neděle,” “niedziela,” “nedelja”, “nedjelja,” “недеља”, “неділя” and “нядзеля” respectively – can be translated as “without acts (no work).”

The Modern Greek word for Sunday, Greek: Κυριακή, is derived from Greek: Κύριος (Kyrios, Lord).

The Arabic word for Sunday is الأحد (Al-Ahad), which means “The first”. Usually it comes after the word يوم (Youm or Yom) which means day, so it translates as “The first day” when combining them.

In Korean, Sunday is called 일요일 Il-yo-Il, meaning “day of sun”.

In Japanese, Sunday is 日曜日 Nichiyōbi, which translates to “sun day”.

The Lord’s Day in Christianity is generally Sunday, the principal day of communal worship. It is observed by most Christians as the weekly memorial of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who is said in the canonical
Gospels to have been witnessed alive from the dead early on the first day of the week

The phrase the “Lord’s Day” appears only once in the Bible in Revelation 1:10 which was written near the end of the first century. It is the English translation of the Koine Greek Kyriake hemera. The adjective kyriake (“Lord’s”) often elided its noun, as in the neuter kyriakon for “Lord’s [assembly]”, the predecessor of the word “church” – the noun was to be supplied by context.

According to some sources, Christians held corporate worship on Sunday in the 1st century. Before the Early Middle Ages, the Lord’s Day became associated with Sabbatarian (rest) practices legislated by Church Councils.

In Roman culture, Sunday was the day of the Sun god. In pagan theology, the Sun was the source of life, giving warmth and illumination to mankind. It was the center of a popular cult among Romans, who would stand at dawn to catch the first rays of sunshine as they prayed.

The Roman emperor Constantine I (died 337), a convert to Christianity, introduced the first civil legislation concerning Sunday in 321, when he decreed that all work should cease on that day, except that farmers could work if necessary. That law, aimed at providing time for worship, was followed later in the same century and in subsequent centuries by further restrictions on Sunday activities.

In Roman Catholic liturgy, Sunday begins on Saturday evening. The evening Mass on Saturday is liturgically a full Sunday Mass and fulfills the obligation of Sunday Mass attendance, and Vespers (evening prayer) on Saturday night is liturgically “first Vespers” of the Sunday.

In the Eastern Orthodox Church, Sunday begins at the Little Entrance of Vespers (or All-Night Vigil) on Saturday evening and runs until “Vouchsafe, O Lord” (after the “prokeimenon”) of Vespers on Sunday night.

Easter, also called Pascha, Zatik or Resurrection Sunday is a Christian festival and cultural holiday commemorating the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, described in the New Testament as having occurred on the third day of his burial following his crucifixion by the Romans at Calvary c. 30 AD. It is the culmination of the Passion of Jesus, preceded by Lent (or Great Lent), a 40-day period of fasting, prayer, and penance.

Many American and British daily newspapers publish a larger edition on Sundays, which often includes color comic strips, a magazine, and a coupon section – may only publish on a Sunday; or may have a “sister-paper” with a different masthead that only publishes on a Sunday.

Super Bowl Sunday, officially Super Sunday in the NFL, is the day on which the Super Bowl, the National Football League (NFL)’s annual championship game, is played. Sometimes described as an unofficial national holiday, it usually occurs on the first Sunday in February.

Black Sunday refers to a particularly severe dust storm that occurred on April 14, 1935 as part of the Dust Bowl in the United States. It was one of the worst dust storms in American history and it caused immense economic and agricultural damage. It is estimated to have displaced 300 million tons of topsoil from the prairie area.