Do You Really Know Saturday?

Do You Really Know Saturday?

Saturday is the most awaited day in a week by everyone as we all temporarily disembark from our five day long official journey, only to continue after a couple of days on Monday, which could be possibly the most dreaded day of the week, for similar reasons.

Thus Saturday becomes the day for fun and recreation where most of the people indulge themselves in abandoned gay especially during the night, popularly called across various cultures as ‘Saturday Night’.

Memes can be found in plenty trolling Mondays and celebrating Saturdays and are mostly created as emotions out pour on a Monday lamenting its arrival and on Fridays when everyone is set ready to enter the weekend through a joyous Saturday.

This is what one can summarize about the Saturdays that we spend, which is routine in our lives, like everyone’s’. There are more interesting facts both fun and historical, about Saturdays that are worth knowing.

Birthday of Vampire Hunters
Traditionally, in olden days it was believed that Saturdays are the appropriated days to hunt down Vampires as they are restricted only to their coffins and are not allowed to get out on that day. In the Balkans tradition, those who are born on Saturdays are entitled to become vampire hunters as they can see vampires but not by others.

Swedish Saturday Candy
Children are allowed to have candies only on Saturdays, every week in Sweden. This is termed as Saturday Candy. The reason behind this practice of allowing children to have candies on Saturdays is to prevent tooth decays, yet it has an historical reason that was considered controversial in medical ethics.

Known as Vipeholm experiments, during 1945-55, mentally challenged people at the Vipeholm mental hospital in Lund, Sweden, are fed too much of sweets to study dental health. This was the result of an experiment sponsored by both the sugar industry personals and the doctor community to know if carbohydrates have a direct impact in the formation of dental cavities.

The only weekly off in Nepal
Saturdays are the only official weekly holidays in Nepal and not Sunday. Also, it is the last day of the week in Nepal. Even though there is no factual information about how long this is in practice, it is said that for a century Nepal follows the one weekly holiday procedure. It is even said that the idea to improve efficiency by making both Saturdays and Sundays as offs didn’t work. Strange? Very!

Election Day
In many countries Saturday is the preferred day for election of public representatives. In Australia, elections are held usually on Saturdays and in New Zealand, Saturdays are the only days in which elections can be conducted. It is also preferred by the State of Louisiana, in the United States.

Why the name Saturday?
The seven day week came into the practice of Roman Culture in 321 AD, after being originated in Mesopotamia. These seven days are based on the seven planets that were then believed to revolve around the Earth and thus control the events happening. Saturday is named after the planet Saturn, which is the god of agriculture in Roman mythology. The astronomical symbol of the planet resembles the sickle carried by the god of agriculture.

Saturday as the Seventh day

The calendar that we follow considers Saturday as the sixth day of the week and is the idea of the international standard ISO 8601 that was created to represent date and time in a seamless way, so that they are not confused as they differ to a great degree across various geographical locations of the world.

But the Abrahamic religions including Christianity, Islam and Judaism consider Saturday as the seventh day of the week.

The day of rest

As Genesis sums up the creation f world in seven days, it considers the seventh day, when God took rest after creating the whole universe during the previous six days. Thus the seventh day is considered to be a Sabbath or day of rest.

As religions consider Saturday as the seventh day, they also make it as a day of rest or worship, calling it as Sabbath. There is a lot of controversy around changing the Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday, which just to mention and not go into the details, is the purpose of this article.

Saturday is no day for controversy! Sit back, relax and chill!

Author

readnlove
Published on the website ReadnLove