Give me a week...
Can you go to Sunday’s church on a Wednesday? I hear someone asking “what kind of a stupid ass question is that?” Well, put on your furry suit and bear with me here.
In 18th life was beautifu, peaceful, and nice. Sikes! Life was horrible in France, none of the aristocrats was paying any taxes, the previous kind entered a war with England that cost the country millions, add that a tornado passed by throwing away all there is to harvest in this depressing year. Prices go up, and people can’t find food to eat; here is a picture of a Pizza
So as a result the king calls to meet the parliament even though they haven’t been under the same roof in 175 years
Actual footage of the parliament before that;
The French parliament was divided into three thirds at the time, third for the aristocrats, third for the church, and third for the common people. Of course if you are still reading you’re probably wondering one thing
Anyway, since the aristocrats and the church had a total of 2 thirds of the parliament most decisions didn’t go the people’s way. Common people representatives didn’t like that, so in protest they got up and left the parliament, the rest of the parliament closed the door and didn’t let them in. The fuck, dude! Are we kids here?
The common people representatives gathered around in a tennis court and in an epic scene started what later became known as the tennis court oath.
Starting a chain of actions that ended up with one of the biggest revolutions in history; the French Revolution. In July people stormed the Bastille prison causing the indie rock band to lose millions of dollars, there might a slight mix ip regarding that last information. The French people stormed into the prison and took all of the weapons in it. In August the French National Assembly writes a new constitution stating that all people are equal. Things didn’t stop there, the king wasn’t paying them any attention too all of that. The hungry people got angrier and there were no snickers around at the time.
In October of the same year the women, including butchers, storm the Versailles palace and take the King’s wife, and King takes that as a warning to leave. In 1791 the king attempts to sneak into Austria, his wife’s homeleand, and he gets caught at the border and gets executed for treason in 1793. What a revolution! Because we must remember that for over a thousand years France been a monarchy, such monarchy was protected by the church as there is no reason for a king to be one if he wasn’t chosen by the church. Thus removing and murdering the king means you are at war with the church.
The leaders of the French revolution wanted such war with the church. They publicized most of the church’s belongings, when I tell you the church’s belongings you need to know that we are taking about an entity that once owned 30% of the world at some point according to Kevin Chil’ “Who Owns the World”, the church was very strong. Not only was strong financially, it was strong socially and culturally, names of people, streets, holidays, people’s days off, even the calendar, and they were taxing, bear in mind, even if the king doesn’t pay taxes to the church they were able to take him off his throne. Religion and church were everything.
Now we come to Maximilien Robespierre
Looking a baby, if babies were 80 years old.
Anyway Robespierre, hated the church and wanted to exact revenge to the church as he is a renascence lover. How would he exact revenge? Well, he turned the country from monarchy to a republican, to changing the name of streets, to changing the calendar it self, Robespierre ain’t here to mess around. Robespierre Created new days, measured by new nimber of hours, in 1793 he celebrated the implementation of the French Revolutionary Calendar; the minutes is made up 100 seconds, an hour is a 100 minutes long, a day is 10 hours long, and most importantly the week is 10 days long.
Why change the week to be 10 days long? Well, Robespierre was pretty sneaky, when you make the week 10 minutes long, people will get confused and not know when to go to church on Sundays. Sundays are no longer Sundays, and the week is 10 days long and they had different days off, everything got more messed up that Game of Thrones season 8. Robespierre Chose to name days using numbers so they don’t go back to the old names and people when is Sunday and they go to pray, or take the day off at least. Robespierre wanted A new-born France, nothing like the old days, everything is aimed for the future that is bright in his mind. That calender continued for three years. The entire world was going through the time in a specific way while France was doing it in another. Anyway this whole ended with Robespierre‘s head getting chopped above and the rise to power by 13 years old emo transgender boy
Napoleon Bonaparte
France turned from a monarchy, to a republican, to an emprire, all the way back to a monrachy again until 1848, 59 years after the French Revolution. Anyway, I am not even here to talk about the French Revolution
I am just to ask one question; what is a week? I know I sound stupid when I say this, but a week is a very.... well.... weak concept. The concept of a week is a fragile one, it is a strange. I understand the concept of a day, theoretically it is when our planet does a full circle around the Kardashians. The concept of a year I understand, it is when the planet earth does a 360 round the sun, concept of a month it is when the moon does a full circle around earth. But what is a week? What happens that makes us all know when a week is starting or finishing?
Think about it why isn’t it 6 days long, so a month would easily be 5 weeks long? Why isn’t it 5 days long and if you divide 365 on 5 you end up with a clear number of 73 weeks? These are pretty interesting questions, and if you don’t find them interesting then go write your own fucking post.
The concept of a week could be an invention, well not to shock but time in its entirety is a concept but that is a different story. But a week isn’t like a day, month, or year, we can tie any of those to certain events occurring that could tell us that they occurred without the need for a phone. So they are inventions but can be related to astrological reasons, week, not so much. We can’t relate it to something astrologically, or I personally can’t, if you can then go ahead and let me know please.
There are differences between the calculations of months and years in diffetent cultures but at least now we can relate them to different things. But weeks in general, according to historians, have something to do with the celestial bodies.
In Babylon
Since they were able to spot 7 celestial bodies they decided to make their weeks 7 days long. If you go to the naming of the days it would make sense, Sunday, day of the sun; Monday, day of moon, now you might be wondering what does Tuesday have to do with mars, well, here we go to the French naming of the day, Mardi, and so on.
So basically the idea of 7 days a week goes back to babylon becaus they only saw 7 celestial bodies, so most likely if they saw other planets we would have nine days days a week, 10 counting pluto, then 9 again after discounting it. So, yeah, a week is a fragile concept. Weeks didn’t go for 7 days in a lot of cultures, in Rome’s calender the week was 8 days long, same with Burma, as well as the celtics, in China it was 10 days long, Aztecs weeks were 13 days long, almost half a month.
The idea is, cultures wanted weeks length to be a specific number for various reasons. A Christian or a Muslim calender has the week 7 days long, because there had to be a 7th day for worship. The exact same reason is why the French Revolutionary Calendar was 10 days long and cancel the 7 days long week, also made the Soviet Union change the week’s length to be 6 days long for a while. When you think about the way a week is organized, with the vacations and all, you find them to be important. If we take a look at the Egyptians protests against Mubarak, yes they started on a Tuesday on the 25th of January, but according to a study by Neil Ketchley, every protest that followed, at least during the same year, were on a Friday. The idea of a Friday stems from the fact that if there was no internet because the regime cut it, people were still gathered at mosques. Thus the Friday of Anger happenedin Egypt, followed by “it is time to leave” Friday, follow by another “it is time to leave” Friday, then victory Friday, then “Why are you still here?” Friday, then the Friday of unity, then the Friday of “Dude, seriously. Get the fuck out of here”. That happened to all Arab countries except for Tunisia where it was on Wednesday, because someone had to fuck my anomaly.
In Summary
A quarter of a moon revolving around the earth becomes a goal for revolutions, protests, whether to demolish it, change it or motivated through it. Leaving the world agreeing (kind of) that a week is 7 days long.