1.
Mars (mythology)
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In ancient Roman religion and myth, Mars was the god of war and also an agricultural guardian, a combination characteristic of early Rome. He was second in only to Jupiter and he was the most prominent of the military gods in the religion of the Roman army. Most of his festivals were held in March, the named for him, and in October. Under the influence of Greek culture, Mars was identified with the Greek god Ares, whose myths were reinterpreted in Roman literature and art under the name of Mars. But the character and dignity of Mars differed in fundamental ways from that of his Greek counterpart, Mars was a part of the Archaic Triad along with Jupiter and Quirinus, the latter of whom as a guardian of the Roman people had no Greek equivalent. Mars altar in the Campus Martius, the area of Rome that took its name from him, was supposed to have been dedicated by Numa, the peace-loving semi-legendary second king of Rome. Although Ares was viewed primarily as a destructive and destabilizing force, Mars represented military power as a way to secure peace, in the mythic genealogy and founding myths of Rome, Mars was the father of Romulus and Remus with Rhea Silvia. Like Ares who was the son of Zeus and Hera, Mars is usually considered to be the son of Jupiter, however, in a version of his birth given by Ovid, he was the son of Juno alone. Jupiter had usurped the mothers function when he gave birth to Minerva directly from his forehead, to restore the balance, Flora obtained a magic flower and tested it on a heifer who became fecund at once. She then plucked a flower ritually using her thumb, touched Junos belly, Juno withdrew to Thrace and the shore of Marmara for the birth. Ovid tells this story in the Fasti, his poetic work on the Roman calendar. In the earliest Roman calendar, March was the first month, Ovid is the only source for the story. The consort of Mars was Nerio or Nerine, Valor and she represents the vital force, power and majesty of Mars. Her name was regarded as Sabine in origin and is equivalent to Latin virtus, in the early 3rd century BC, the comic playwright Plautus has a reference to Mars greeting Nerio, his wife. A source from late antiquity says that Mars and Nerine were celebrated together at a festival held on March 23, in the later Roman Empire, Nerine came to be identified with Minerva. Nerio probably originates as a personification of Mars power, as such abstractions in Latin are generally feminine. Her name appears with that of Mars in an archaic prayer invoking a series of abstract qualities, the influence of Greek mythology and its anthropomorphic gods may have caused Roman writers to treat these pairs as marriages. The union of Venus and Mars held greater appeal for poets and philosophers, in Greek myth, the adultery of Ares and Aphrodite had been exposed to ridicule when her husband Hephaestus caught them in the act by means of a magical snare
2.
National and University Library of Iceland
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Landsbókasafn Íslands — Háskólabókasafn is the national library of Iceland which also functions as the university library of the University of Iceland. The library was established on December 1,1994 in Reykjavík, Iceland, with the merger of the national library, Landsbókasafn Íslands. It is by far the largest library in Iceland with about one million items in various collections, the librarys largest collection is the national collection containing almost all written works published in Iceland and items related to Iceland published elsewhere. The library is the legal deposit library in Iceland. The library also has a manuscript collection with mostly early modern and modern manuscripts. The library houses the largest academic collection in Iceland, most of which can be borrowed for use by holders of library cards. University students get library cards for free, but anyone can acquire a card for a small fee, the library is open for public access. The library main building is called Þjóðarbókhlaðan and it is a prominent 13,000 square meters red and white building near the main campus of the University of Iceland and the National Museum of Iceland. The building took 16 years to complete, finally opening in 1994, from 1825 the library was housed in the loft of the newly renovated Reykjavík Cathedral and in 1848 the first national librarian, folklorist Jón Árnason, was hired to manage it. In 1847 the manuscript collection was started with the purchase of a collection of manuscripts from the estate of bishop Steingrímur Jónsson. On the occasion of the 1000th anniversary of the settlement of Iceland in 1874 the library received many gifts and in 1883 Jón Árnason estimated the total number of volumes in the library at 20,000. In 1881 the library moved into the new house of parliament, Alþingishús, after this the library grew fast and on its 100th anniversary in 1918 it counted 100,000 volumes. In 1906-1908 a special building, Safnahúsið, was erected to house the National Library, the National Museum, the Icelandic National Archives, the library of the University of Iceland was formally established in 1940 when the university moved into the Main Building. Before that time the individual departments had their own libraries, at the time it was debated whether it was practical to develop two academic state libraries in Iceland and so in 1947 a committee was established to decide on a division of tasks between them. Soon, a merger of the two libraries was proposed and in 1956 a new committee was set up to prepare for this eventuality and it seemed clear that a new specially designed building close to the university would be required. The idea was that this new building, Þjóðarbókhlaðan, would be opened in 1974. The two libraries began working towards this end and through UNESCO library experts were consulted as to the requirements of the new building, as the year 1974 drew near it became increasingly clear, however, that the Icelandic state would not be able to construct the building in time. The 1973 Oil Crisis, among other things, resulted in a worsening of the states finances meaning that most of the ideas for the year had to be significantly reduced or scrapped
3.
Names of the days of the week
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In some other languages, the days are named after corresponding deities of the regional culture, either beginning with Sunday or with Monday. In the international standard ISO8601, Monday is treated as the first day of the week, between the 1st and 3rd centuries the Roman Empire gradually replaced the eight-day Roman nundinal cycle with the seven-day week. Our earliest evidence for new system is a Pompeiian graffito referring to the 6th February of the year AD60 as dies solis. The days were named after the planets of Hellenistic astrology, in the order Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, the seven-day week spread throughout the Roman Empire in Late Antiquity. By the 4th century, it was in use throughout the Empire. Other languages adopted the week together with the Latin names for the days of the week in the colonial period, some constructed languages also adopted the Latin terminology. The Germanic peoples adapted the system introduced by the Romans by substituting the Germanic deities for the Roman ones in a known as interpretatio germanica. This period is later than the Common Germanic stage, but still during the phase of undifferentiated West Germanic, the names of the days of the week in North Germanic languages were not calqued from Latin directly, but taken from the West Germanic names. Sunday, Old English Sunnandæg, meaning suns day and this is a translation of the Latin phrase dies Solis. English, like most of the Germanic languages, preserves the original pagan/sun associations of the day, many other European languages, including all of the Romance languages, have changed its name to the equivalent of the Lords day. In both West Germanic and North Germanic mythology the Sun is personified as Sunna/Sól, Monday, Old English Mōnandæg, meaning Moons day. This is based on a translation of the Latin name dies lunae, in North Germanic mythology, the Moon is personified as Máni. Tuesday, Old English Tīwesdæg, meaning Tiws day, tiw was a one-handed god associated with single combat and pledges in Norse mythology and also attested prominently in wider Germanic paganism. The name of the day is based on Latin dies Martis, Wednesday, Old English Wōdnesdæg meaning the day of the Germanic god Woden, and a prominent god of the Anglo-Saxons in England until about the seventh century. It is based on Latin dies Mercurii, Day of Mercury, the connection between Mercury and Odin is more strained than the other syncretic connections. The Icelandic Miðviku, German Mittwoch, Low German Middeweek and Finnish keskiviikko all mean mid-week, Thursday, Old English Þūnresdæg, meaning Þunors day. Þunor means thunder or its personification, the Norse god known in Modern English as Thor, similarly Dutch donderdag, German Donnerstag, Finnish torstai, and Scandinavian Torsdag. Thors day corresponds to Latin dies Iovis, day of Jupiter, Friday, Old English Frīgedæg, meaning the day of the Anglo-Saxon goddess Fríge
4.
Monday
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Monday is the day of the week between Sunday and Tuesday. According to the international standard ISO8601 it is the first day of the week, the name of Monday is derived from Old English Mōnandæg and Middle English Monenday, originally a translation of Latin dies lunae day of the Moon. The names of the day of the week were coined in the Roman era, in Greek and Latin, in the case of Monday as ἡμέρᾱ Σελήνης, most languages use terms either directly derived from these names, or loan-translations based on them. The Germanic term is a Germanic interpretation of Latin lunae dies, japanese and Korean share the same ancient Chinese words 月曜日 for Monday which means day of the moon. In many Indo-Aryan languages, the word for Monday is Somavāra or Chandravāra, Sanskrit loan-translations of Monday. In some cases, the names are used, a tradition of numbering the days of the week in order to avoid the pagan connotation of the planetary names. In many Slavic languages the name of the day translates to after Sunday/holiday, russian понедельник, Croatian ponedjeljak, Serbian понедељак, Ukrainian понеділок, Bulgarian понеделник, Polish poniedziałek, Czech pondělí, Slovak pondelok, Slovenian ponedeljek. In Turkish it is called pazartesi, which means after Sunday. Historically, the Greco-Roman week began with Sunday, and Monday was the day of the week. It is still the custom to refer to Monday as feria secunda in the calendar of the Roman Catholic Church. Quakers also traditionally referred to Monday as Second Day, the Portuguese and the Greek also retain the ecclesiastical tradition. Likewise the Modern Hebrew name for Monday is yom-sheni, in modern times, it has become more common to consider Monday the first day of the week. The international ISO8601 standard places Monday as the first day of the week, Monday is xīngqīyī in Chinese, meaning day one of the week. Modern Western culture usually looks at Monday as the beginning of the workweek, in Judaism Mondays are considered auspicious days for fasting. The Didache warned early Christians not to fast on Mondays to avoid Judaizing, in Judaism the Torah is read in public on Monday mornings, one of three days the Torah is read each week. Special penitential prayers are recited on Monday, unless there is an occasion for happiness which cancels them. In the Eastern Orthodox Church Mondays are days on which the Angels are commemorated, the Octoechos contains hymns on this theme, arranged in an eight-week cycle, that are chanted on Mondays throughout the year. At the end of Divine Services on Monday, the dismissal begins with the words, May Christ our True God, through the intercessions of his most-pure Mother, of the honorable, Bodiless Powers of Heaven…
5.
Wednesday
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Wednesday is the day of the week following Tuesday and before Thursday. According to international standard ISO8601 adopted in most western countries it is the day of the week. In countries that use the Sunday-first convention Wednesday is defined as the day of the week. It is the day of the week in the Judeo-Christian Hebrew calendar as well. The name is derived from Old English Wōdnesdæg and Middle English Wednesdei, day of Woden, in other languages, such as the French mercredi, the days name is a calque of dies Mercurii day of Mercury. It has the most letters out of all the Gregorian calendar days, Wednesday is in the middle of the common Western five-day workweek that starts on Monday and finishes on Friday. See Names of the days of the week for more on naming conventions, the name Wednesday continues Middle English Wednesdei. Old English still had wōdnesdæg, which would be continued as *Wodnesday, by the early 13th century, the i-mutated form was introduced unetymologically. The name is a calque of the Latin dies Mercurii day of Mercury, the Latin name dates to the late 2nd or early 3rd century. The Latin name is reflected directly in the name in Romance languages, Mércuris, mercredi, mercoledì, miércoles, miercuri, dimecres, Marcuri or Mercuri. The German name for the day, Mittwoch, replaced the former name Wodenstag in the tenth century, the Dutch name for the day, woensdag has the same etymology as English Wednesday, it comes from Middle Dutch wodenesdag, woedensdag. Most Slavic languages follow this pattern and use derivations of the middle, the Finnish name is Keskiviikko, as is the Icelandic name, Miðvikudagur, and the Faroese name, Mikudagur. Some dialects of Faroese have Ónsdagur, though, which shares etymology with Wednesday, in Welsh it is Dydd Mercher, meaning Mercurys Day. In Japanese, the word Wednesday is 水曜日, meaning day and is associated with 水星, Mercury. Similarly, in Korean the word Wednesday is 수요일, also meaning water day, in most of the languages of India, the word for Wednesday is Budhavãra—vãra meaning day and Budh being the planet Mercury. From Armenian, Georgian, and Tajik languages the word means as four from Saturday. Portuguese uses the word quarta-feira, meaning day, while in Greek the word is Tetarti meaning simply fourth. Similarly, Arabic أربعاء means fourth, Hebrew רביעי means fourth, yet the name for the day in Estonian kolmapäev, Lithuanian trečiadienis, and Latvian trešdiena means third day while in Mandarin Chinese 星期三, means day three, as Sunday is unnumbered
6.
Old English
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Old English or Anglo-Saxon is the earliest historical form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers probably in the mid 5th century, Old English developed from a set of Anglo-Frisian or North Sea Germanic dialects originally spoken by Germanic tribes traditionally known as the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes. As the Anglo-Saxons became dominant in England, their language replaced the languages of Roman Britain, Common Brittonic, a Celtic language, Old English had four main dialects, associated with particular Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, Mercian, Northumbrian, Kentish and West Saxon. It was West Saxon that formed the basis for the standard of the later Old English period, although the dominant forms of Middle. The speech of eastern and northern parts of England was subject to strong Old Norse influence due to Scandinavian rule, Old English is one of the West Germanic languages, and its closest relatives are Old Frisian and Old Saxon. Like other old Germanic languages, it is different from Modern English. Old English grammar is similar to that of modern German, nouns, adjectives, pronouns, and verbs have many inflectional endings and forms. The oldest Old English inscriptions were using a runic system. Old English was not static, and its usage covered a period of 700 years, from the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain in the 5th century to the late 11th century, some time after the Norman invasion. While indicating that the establishment of dates is a process, Albert Baugh dates Old English from 450 to 1150, a period of full inflections. Perhaps around 85 per cent of Old English words are no longer in use, Old English is a West Germanic language, developing out of Ingvaeonic dialects from the 5th century. It came to be spoken over most of the territory of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms which became the Kingdom of England and this included most of present-day England, as well as part of what is now southeastern Scotland, which for several centuries belonged to the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumbria. Other parts of the island – Wales and most of Scotland – continued to use Celtic languages, Norse was also widely spoken in the parts of England which fell under Danish law. Anglo-Saxon literacy developed after Christianisation in the late 7th century, the oldest surviving text of Old English literature is Cædmons Hymn, composed between 658 and 680. There is a corpus of runic inscriptions from the 5th to 7th centuries. The Old English Latin alphabet was introduced around the 9th century, with the unification of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms by Alfred the Great in the later 9th century, the language of government and literature became standardised around the West Saxon dialect. In Old English, typical of the development of literature, poetry arose before prose, a later literary standard, dating from the later 10th century, arose under the influence of Bishop Æthelwold of Winchester, and was followed by such writers as the prolific Ælfric of Eynsham. This form of the language is known as the Winchester standard and it is considered to represent the classical form of Old English
Media related to Tuesday at Wikimedia Commons
Quotations related to Tuesday at Wikiquote
The dictionary definition of Tuesday at Wiktionary
