The Day Today

 

In a divided world, isnt it amazing that everyone agrees that today is Sunday?

We don't agree on language, politics, national boundaries, even how many countries there are in the world, but we all agree on the day of the week, whatever each language calls it.

Apparently, in AD 321, Emperor Constantine the Great officially decreed a seven-day week in the Roman Empire, including making Sunday a public holiday. This later spread across Europe, then the rest of the world. He took this from Christianity, who in turn got it from Judaism. This could have been borrowed from the Akkadians, as the earliest evidence of an astrological significance of a seven-day period is decree of king Sargon of Akkad around 2300 BCE. Akkadians venerated the number seven, and the key celestial bodies visible to the naked eye numbered seven (the Sun, the Moon and the five closest planets). 

There is no similar agreement on which day is the first day of the week, though. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) uses Monday as the first day of the week in its ISO 8601 standard for date and time representation.