The Daily Mirror (informally The Mirror) is a British national daily tabloid newspaper which was founded in 1903. From 1985 to 1987, and from 1997 to 2002, the title on its masthead was simply The Mirror. It had an average daily circulation of 1,083,938 in March 2012.^[1] Its Sunday sister paper is the Sunday Mirror.

The Mirror has had a number of owners. It was founded by Alfred Harmsworth, who sold it to his brother Harold Harmsworth (from 1914 Lord Rothermere) in 1913. In 1963 a restructuring of the media interests of the Harmsworth family led to the Mirror becoming a part of International Publishing Corporation. The Mirror was owned by Robert Maxwell between 1984 and 1991. The paper went through a protracted period of crisis after his death before merging with the regional newspaper group Trinity in 1999 to form Trinity Mirror.

History[link]

1903 to 1995[link]

Alfred Harmsworth (later Lord Northcliffe), the founder of the Daily Mirror.

The Daily Mirror was launched on 2 November 1903 by Alfred Harmsworth (later Lord Northcliffe) as a newspaper for women, run by women. Hence the name: he said, "I intend it to be really a mirror of feminine life as well on its grave as on its lighter sides....to be entertaining without being frivolous, and serious without being dull".^[2] It cost one penny.

It was not an immediate success and in 1904 Harmsworth decided to turn it into a pictorial newspaper with a broader focus. Harmsworth appointed Hamilton Fyfe as editor and all of the paper's women journalists were fired. The masthead was changed to The Daily Illustrated Mirror, which ran from 26 January to 27 April 1904 (issues 72 to 150), when it reverted to The Daily Mirror.^[3] The first issue of the relaunched paper did not have advertisements on the front page as previously, but instead news text and engraved pictures (of a traitor and an actress), with the promise of photographs inside.^[4] Two days later, the price was dropped to one halfpenny and to the masthead was added: "A paper for men and women".^[5] This combination was more successful: by issue 92, the guaranteed circulation was 120,000 copies^[6] and by issue 269, it had grown to 200,000:^[7] by then the name had reverted and the front page was mainly photographs. Circulation grew to 466,000 making it the second largest morning newspaper.^[8]

Alfred Harmsworth sold the newspaper to his brother Harold Harmsworth (from 1914 Lord Rothermere) in 1913. In 1917, the price was increased to one penny.^[9] Circulation continued to grow: in 1919, some issues sold more than 1 million copies a day, making it the largest daily picture paper.^[10]

By the mid 1930s, the Mirror was struggling – it and the Mail were the main casualties of the early 1930s circulation war that saw the Daily Herald and the Daily Express establish circulations of more than two million, and Rothermere decided to sell his shares in it.

With Cecil King (Rothermere's nephew) in charge of the paper's finances and Guy Bartholomew as editor, during the late-1930s the Mirror was transformed from a conservative, middle class newspaper into a left-wing paper for the working class. The Mirror was the first UK paper to adopt the appearance of the New York tabloids. By 1939, the publication was selling 1.4 million copies a day. In 1937, Hugh McClelland introduced his wild Western comic strip Beelzebub Jones in the Daily Mirror. After taking over as cartoon chief at the Mirror in 1945, he dropped Beelzebub Jones and moved on to a variety of new strips.

During World War II, the Mirror positioned itself as the paper of the ordinary soldier and civilian, and was critical of the political leadership and the established parties. At one stage, the paper was threatened with closure following the publication of a Philip Zec cartoon (captioned by William Connor), which was misinterpreted by Winston Churchill and Herbert Morrison.^[11] In the 1945 general election the paper strongly supported the Labour Party in its eventual landslide victory. In doing so, the paper supported Herbert Morrison, who co-ordinated Labour's campaign, and recruited his former antagonist Philip Zec to reproduce, on the front page, a popular VE Day cartoon on the morning of the election, suggesting that Labour were the only party who could maintain peace in post-war Britain.^[12] By the late 1940s, it was selling 4.5 million copies a day, outstripping the Express; for some 30 years afterwards, it dominated the British daily newspaper market, selling over 5 million copies a day at its peak in the mid-1960s.

The Mirror was an influential model for German tabloid Bild, which was founded in 1952 and became Europe's biggest-selling newspapaer.^[13]

In 1955, the Mirror and its stablemate the Sunday Pictorial (later to become the Sunday Mirror) began printing a Northern edition in Manchester. In 1957, it introduced the Andy Capp cartoon, created by Reg Smythe from Hartlepool, in the northern editions.

The Mirror's mass working class readership had made it the United Kingdom's best-selling daily tabloid newspaper. In 1960, it acquired the Daily Herald (the popular daily of the labour movement) when it bought Odhams, in one of a series of takeovers which created the International Publishing Corporation (IPC). The Mirror management did not want the Herald competing with the Mirror for readers, and in 1964, relaunched it as a mid-market paper, now named The Sun. When it failed to win readers, the Sun was sold to Rupert Murdoch – who immediately relaunched it as a more populist and sensationalist tabloid and a direct competitor to the Mirror.

In an attempt to cater to a different kind of reader, the Mirror launched the "Mirrorscope" pull-out section on 30 January 1968. The Press Gazette commented: "The Daily Mirror launched its revolutionary four-page supplement "Mirrorscope". The ambitious brief for the supplement, which ran on Wednesdays and Thursdays, was to deal with international affairs, politics, industry, science, the arts and business".^[14] The British Journalism Review said in 2002 that "Mirrorscope" was "a game attempt to provide serious analysis in the rough and tumble of the tabloids".^[15] It failed to attract significant numbers of new readers, and the pull-out section was abandoned, its final issue appearing on 27 August 1974.

In 1978, The Sun overtook the Mirror in circulation, and in 1984 the Mirror was sold to Robert Maxwell. After Maxwell's death in 1991, David Montgomery became Mirror Group's CEO, and a period of cost-cutting and production changes ensued. The Mirror went through a protracted period of crisis before merging with the regional newspaper group Trinity to form Trinity Mirror in 1999. Printing of The Daily and Sunday Mirror moved to Trinity Mirror's facilities in Watford and Oldham.

1995 to 2004[link]

Under the editorship of Piers Morgan (from October 1995 to May 2004) the paper saw a number of controversies. Morgan was widely criticised and forced to apologise for the headline "ACHTUNG! SURRENDER For you Fritz, ze Euro 96 Championship is over" a day before England met Germany in a semi-final of the Euro '96 football championships.^[16]

In 2000, Morgan was the subject of an investigation after Suzy Jagger wrote a story in The Daily Telegraph revealing that he had bought £20,000 worth of shares in the computer company Viglen soon before the Mirror 's 'City Slickers' column tipped Viglen as a good buy.^[17] Morgan was found by the Press Complaints Commission to have breached the Code of Conduct on financial journalism, but kept his job. The 'City Slickers' columnists, Anil Bhoyrul and James Hipwell, were both found to have committed further breaches of the Code, and were sacked before the inquiry. In 2004, further enquiry by the Department of Trade and Industry cleared Morgan from any charges.^[18] On 7 December 2005 Bhoyrul and Hipwell were convicted of conspiracy to breach the Financial Services Act. During the trial it emerged that Morgan had bought £67,000 worth of Viglen shares, emptying his bank account and investing under his wife's name too.^[19]

In 2002, the Mirror attempted to move mid-market, claiming to eschew the more trivial stories of show-business and gossip. The paper changed its masthead logo from red to black (and occasionally blue), in an attempt to dissociate itself from the term "red top", a term for a sensationalist mass-market tabloid. (On 6 April 2005, the red top came back.) Under then-editor Piers Morgan, the newspaper's editorial stance opposed the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and ran many front pages critical of the war. It also gave financial support to the 15 February 2003 anti-war protest, paying for a large screen and providing thousands of placards. Morgan re-hired John Pilger, who had been sacked during Robert Maxwell's ownership of the Mirror titles. Despite such changes, Morgan was unable to halt the paper's decline in circulation, a decline shared by its direct tabloid rivals The Sun and the Daily Star.^{[citation needed]}

Morgan was fired from the Mirror on 14 May 2004 after authorising the newspaper's publication of photographs allegedly showing Iraqi prisoners being abused by British Army soldiers from the Queen's Lancashire Regiment.^[20] Within days the photographs were shown to be crude fakes. Under the headline "SORRY.. WE WERE HOAXED", the Mirror responded that it had fallen victim to a "calculated and malicious hoax" and apologised for the publication of the photographs.^[21]

2004 to present[link]

The Mirror's front page on 4 November 2004, after the re-election of George W. Bush as U.S. President, read "How can 59,054,087 people be so DUMB?". It provided a list of states and their average IQ, showing the Bush states all below average intelligence (except for Virginia), and all Kerry states at or above average intelligence. The source for this table was The Economist,^[22] though it was a hoax.^[23] Richard Wallace became editor in 2004.

On 30 May 2012, Trinity Mirror announced the merger of the Daily Mirror and Sunday Mirror into a single seven-day-a-week title.^[24] Richard Wallace and Tina Weaver, the respective editors of the Daily Mirror and Sunday Mirror, were simultaneouly dismissed and Lloyd Embley, editor of The People, appointed as editor of the combined title with immediate effect.^[25][26]

Political allegiance[link]

The Daily Mirror has traditionally backed the Labour Party at general elections.

On 3 May 1979, the day of the general election, the Daily Mirror urged its readers to vote for the governing Labour Party led by James Callaghan.^[27] As widely predicted by the opinion polls, Labour lost this election, which was won by the Conservative Party and saw Margaret Thatcher become Prime Minister.^[27] The Mirror's continued support of the Labour government was in spite of its falling popularity over the previous few months which had been the result of the Winter of Discontent, where the country was crippled by numerous public sector strikes.^[28]

By the time of the 1983 general election, Labour support was at a postwar low, partly due to the strong challenge by the recently formed SDP-Liberal Alliance. Despite this, the Daily Mirror remained loyal to Labour and urged its readers to vote for the party (now led by Michael Foot), condemning the Thatcher-led Tory government for its "waste of our nation",^[27] condemning the rise in unemployment that Thatcher's Conservative government had seen in its first term in power largely due to monetarist economic policies to reduce inflation, though the government's previously low popularity had dramatically improved since the success of the Falklands conflict a year earlier.^[29] However, the Tories were re-elected and Labour suffered its worst postwar general election result, only narrowly bettering the SDP-Liberal Alliance in terms of votes, though winning considerably more seats.^[27]

At the 1987 general election, the Daily Mirror remained loyal to Labour (now led by Neil Kinnock) and urged its readers "You know he's right, chuck her out".^[27] By this stage, unemployment was falling and inflation had remained low for several years.^[30] However, the Tories were re-elected for a third successive term, although Labour did manage to cut the Tory majority significantly.^[27]

For the 1992 general election, the Daily Mirror continued to support Labour, still led by Neil Kinnock. By this stage Margaret Thatcher had stepped down and the Tory government was now led by John Major.^[27] However, the election was won by the Tories with a record of more than 14,000,000 votes, although Labour had managed to cut the Tory majority to 21 seats compared to the triple-digit figure of the previous two elections. The outcome of this election had been far less predictable than any of the previous three elections, as opinion polls over the previous three years had shown both parties in the lead, although any Labour lead in the polls had been relatively narrow since the Conservative government's change of leader from Thatcher to Major in November 1990, in spite of the onset of a recession in 1990 which had pushed unemployment up again after several years of decline. Labour's credibility was helped by plans including extra NHS funding and moving away from firm commitments on re-nationalisation to reverse the Conservative policy of privatisation, but its decision to be up-front about tax increases was seen as a key factor in its failure to win.^[31]

By the time of the 1997 general election, support for the Labour Party, now led by Tony Blair, in the opinion polls had exceeded that of support for the Tory government (still led by John Major) since late 1992, the government's reduced popularity largely blamed on the failings of Black Wednesday in September of that year and it had failed to recover popularity in spite of a strong economic recovery and fall in unemployment. A reinvented "New Labour" had further improved its credibility under Blair by promising traditional Labour essentials including more funding for healthcare and education, but also promising not to increase income tax and ending its commitment to the nationalisation of leading industries.^[32] The Daily Mirror urged its readers that their country needed Tony Blair, and to vote Labour.^[27] The election produced a Labour landslide and ended the party's 18 year exile from power.

On 4 May 2010, the newspaper printed a picture of Conservative Leader David Cameron with a giant red cross through his face. The headline read "How to stop him" in reference to the general election two days later, thus confirming the Daily Mirror's Labour allegiance. The election ended in Britain's first hung parliament since 1974, but Cameron still became prime minister of the country within days as the Conservatives formed a coalition with the Liberal Democrats. The Daily Mirror was the only leading national newspaper to remain loyal to Labour and Gordon Brown at a time when opinion polls showed them on course for their worst election result since 1983.^[33]

The newspaper has been critical of the Liberal Democrats for forming the coalition which enabled the Conservatives to form a new government in 2010. It has branded leader Nick Clegg as Pinickio (in comparison with the cartoon character Pinnochio)^[34] for going back on numerous pre-election pledges. It has frequently referred to the party as the "Fib Dems"^[35] or "Lib Dumbs".^[36]

Famous features[link]

• Cartoon strips "Jane" (1932–1959), "Garth" (1943–1997, reprints 2011), "Just Jake" (1938–1952), "Andy Capp" (1957–), and "The Perishers" (1955–2006 and later reprints).
• "The Old Codgers", a fictional pair who commented on the letters page from 1935 to 1990.^[37]
• Chalky White, who would wander around various British seaside resorts waiting to be recognised by Mirror readers (an obscured photo of him having been published in that day's paper). Anyone who recognised him would have to repeat some phrase along the lines of "To my delight, it's Chalky White" to win £5. The name continues to be used on the cartoons page, as Andy Capp's best friend.
• "Shock issues" intended to highlight a particular news story.
• The columnist Cassandra (1935–1967).
• "Dear Marje", a problem page by agony aunt Marjorie Proops.
• Investigative reporting by Paul Foot and John Pilger (notably the latter's exposé of the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia).
• "The Shopping Basket". Starting in the mid 1970s, the paper monitored the cost of a £5 basket of shopping to see how it increased in price over the years.

Notable issues[link]

• On 2 April 1996, the Daily Mirror was printed entirely on blue paper. This was done as a marketing exercise with Pepsi-Cola, who on the same day had decided to relaunch their cans with a blue design instead of the traditional red and white logo.
• In May 2004, the Daily Mirror published what it claimed were photos of British soldiers abusing Iraqi prisoners at an unspecified location in Iraq. The decision to publish the photos, subsequently shown to be hoaxes, led to Morgan's sacking as editor on 14 May 2004. The Daily Mirror then stated that it was the subject of a "calculated and malicious hoax".^[38] The newspaper issued a statement apologising for the printing of the pictures. The paper's deputy editor, Des Kelly, took over as acting editor during the crisis. The tabloid's rival, The Sun, offered a £50,000 reward for the arrest and conviction of those accused of faking the Mirror photographs.
• In February 2008 both the Daily and the Sunday Mirror implied that TV presenter Kate Garraway was having an affair. She sued for libel, receiving an apology and compensation payment in April 2008.^[39]
• On 18 September 2008, David Anderson, a British sports journalist writing for the Mirror, repeated a claim deriving from vandalism on Wikipedia's entry for Cypriot football team AC Omonia, which asserted that their fans were called "The Zany Ones" and liked to wear hats made from discarded shoes. The claim was part of Anderson's match preview ahead of AC Omonia's game with Manchester City, which appeared in the web and print versions of the Mirror, with the nickname also quoted in subsequent editions on 19 September.^[40][41] The episode was featured in Private Eye.
• On 12 May 2011, the High Court of England and Wales granted the Attorney General permission to bring a case for contempt against The Sun and the Daily Mirror for the way they had reported on the arrest of a person of interest in the Murder of Joanna Yeates.^[42][43] On 29 July, the Court ruled that both newspapers had been in contempt of court, fining the Daily Mirror £50,000 and The Sun £18,000.^[44]

Notable people[link]

Editors[link]

1903 to 1904: Mary Howarth

1904 to 1907: Hamilton Fyfe

1907 to 1915: Alexander Kenealy

1915 to 1916: Ed Flynn

1916 to 1931: Alexander Campbell

1931 to 1934: Leigh Brownlee

1934 to 1948: Cecil Thomas

1948 to 1953: Silvester Bolam

1953 to 1961: Jack Nener

1961 to 1971: Lee Howard

1971 to 1974: Tony Miles

1974 to 1975: Michael Christiansen

1975 to 1985: Mike Molloy

1985 to 1990: Richard Stott

1990 to 1991: Roy Greenslade

1991 to 1992: Richard Stott

1992 to 1994: David Banks

1994 to 1995: Colin Myler

1995 to 2004: Piers Morgan

2004 to 2012: Richard Wallace

2012 to date: Lloyd Embley

Source: Tabloid Nation^[12]

Notable columnists[link]

Notable former and current columnists of the Daily Mirror include:

• The 3AM Girls (gossip columnists);
• William Connor (opinion under the pseudonym Cassandra (1935–1967));
• Richard Hammond (motoring and Saturday columnist);
• Oliver Holt (sports columnist);
• Kevin Maguire (UK politics);
• Tony Parsons (Monday columnist);
• Penman & Greenwood (investigators);
• Fiona Phillips (Saturday columnist);
• Brian Reade (Thursday columnist; also does a sports column on Saturdays); and
• Keith Waterhouse (largely humorous (1993–2009)).

Awards[link]

The Daily Mirror won "Newspaper of the Year" in 2002 at the British Press Awards. It won "Scoop of the Year" in 2003 ("3am", 'Sven and Ulrika'), 2004 (Ryan Parry, 'Intruder at the Palace'), 2006 and 2007 (both Stephen Moyes).^[45] The Mirror won "Team of the Year" in 2001 ('Railtrack'), 2002 ('War on the World: 11 September'), 2003 ('Soham'), and 2006 ('London bombings'); and "Front Page of the Year" in 2007.^[45] The Mirror also won the "Cudlipp Award" in 2002, 2003, 2004 and 2010.^[45]

See also[link]

• The Wharf, sister newspaper – a free local newspaper for the Isle of Dogs.

Notes[link]

References[link]

• Morgan, Piers (13 May 2004). Daily Mirror statement in full. CNN World. Archived from the original on 25 November 2004. http://web.archive.org/web/20041125053916/http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/05/13/iraq.abuse.statement/index.html. Retrieved 28 November 2005 
• Fake abuse photos: Editor quits. London: CNN. 15 May 2004. Archived from the original on 12 October 2004. http://web.archive.org/web/20041012123314/http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/05/14/iraq.abuse.uk/. Retrieved 27 November 2005 

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Daily Mirror

• Official website (Mobile)

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Sunday (ⁱ/ˈsʌndeɪ/ or /ˈsʌndi/) is the day of the week between Saturday and Monday. For most Christians, Sunday is observed as a day for worship of God and rest, due to the belief that it is Lord's Day, the day of Christ's resurrection.

Sunday is a day of rest in most Western countries, part of 'the weekend'. In most Muslim countries, and Israel, Sunday is a working day.

According to the Hebrew calendars, traditional Christian calendars, Sunday is literally the "first day" of the week. According to the International Organization for Standardization ISO 8601 Sunday is the seventh and last day of the week.

No century in the Gregorian calendar starts on a Sunday, whether its first year is '00 or '01.^[1] The Jewish New Year never falls on a Sunday. (The rules of the Hebrew calendar are designed such that the first day of Rosh Hashanah will never occur on the first, fourth, or sixth day of the Jewish week; i.e., Sunday, Wednesday, or Friday).

Etymology[link]

A depiction of Máni, the personified moon, and his sister Sól, the personified sun, from Norse mythology (1895) by Lorenz Frølich.

The English noun Sunday derived sometime before 1250 from sunedai, which itself developed from Old English (before 700) Sunnandæg (literally meaning "sun's day"), 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 heméra helíou.^[2] The p-Celtic Welsh language also translates the Latin "day of the sun" as dydd Sul.

In most Indic languages, the word for Sunday is Ravi-vāsara or Aditya-vāsara or its derived forms — vāsara meaning day, Aditya and Ravi both being a style (manner of address) for Surya, the chief solar deity and one of the Adityas. Ravi-vāsara is first day cited in Nakshtra Jyotish, which provides logical reason for giving the name of each week day. In the Thai solar calendar of Thailand, the name ("Waan Arthit") is derived from Aditya, and the associated color is red.

In Russian the word for Sunday is Воскресенье (Voskreseniye) which means "Resurrection". In other Slavic languages the word means "no work", for example Polish: Niedziela, Belorussian: Нядзеля, Croatian: Nedjelja, Serbian and Slovenian: Nedelja, Czech: Neděle,Bulgarian: Неделя.

The Modern Greek word for Sunday, Κυριακή, derives from Κύριος (Lord) also, due to its liturgical significance as the day commemorating the resurrection of Jesus Christ, i.e.The Lord's Day.

Position in the week[link]

Culture and languages[link]

In the Judaeo-Christian as well as in Islamic tradition, Sunday has been considered as the first day of the week. A number of languages express this position either by the name for the day or by the naming of the other days. In Hebrew it is called יום ראשון yom rishon, in Arabic أحدal-ahad, in Persian and related languages یکشنبه yek-shanbe, all meaning "first". In Greek, the names of the days Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday ("Δευτέρα, "Τρίτη,", "Τετάρτη," and "Πέμπτη") mean "second," "third", "fourth", and "fifth," respectively. This leaves Sunday in the first position of the week count. The current Greek name for Sunday, Κυριακή (Kyriake), means "Lord's Day" coming from the word Κύριος (Kyrios), which is the Greek word for "Lord". Similarly in Portuguese, where the days from Monday to Friday are counted as Segunda-feira, Terça-feira, Quarta-feira, Quinta-feira and Sexta-feira, while Sunday itself similar to Greek has the name of "Lord's Day" (domingo). In Vietnamese, the working days in the week are named as: "Thứ Hai" (second day), "Thứ Ba" (third day), "Thứ Tư" (fourth day), "Thứ Năm" (fifth day), "Thứ Sáu" (sixth day), "Thứ Bảy" (seventh day). Sunday is called "Chủ Nhật," a corrupted form of "Chúa Nhật" meaning "Lord's Day." Some colloquial text in the south of Vietnam and from the church may still use the old form to mean Sunday.

A similar system of naming days of the week occurs in Portuguese. Monday is "segunda-feira," which means "second day," also showing Sunday ("domingo") to be counted as the first day. Modern Latin uses "feria secunda" for Monday.

Slavic languages implicitly number Monday as day number one, not two. For example, Polish has "czwartek" (4th) for Thursday and "piątek" (5th) for Friday. Hungarian péntek (Friday) is a Slavic loanword, so the correlation with "five" is not evident to Hungarians. Hungarians use Vasárnap for Sunday, which means "market day".

In the Maltese language, due to its Siculo-Arabic origin, Sunday is called "Il-Ħadd," a corruption of "wieħed" meaning "one." Monday is "It-Tnejn" meaning "two." Similarly Tuesday is "It-Tlieta" (three), Wednesday is "L-Erbgħa" (four) and Thursday is "Il-Ħamis" (five).

In Armenian, Monday is (Erkushabti) literally meaning 2nd day of the week, Tuesday (Erekshabti) 3rd day, Wednesday (Chorekshabti) 4th day, Thursday (Hingshabti) 5th day. Saturday is (Shabat) coming from the word Sabbath or Shabbath in Hebrew, And "Kiraki" coming from the word "Krak" meaning "fire" is Sunday, "Krak" describing the sun by fire. Apostle John also refers to the "Lord's Day" (in Greek, Κυριακή ημέρα, "kyriake hemera" i.e. the day of the Lord) in Rev. 1:10, which became the Armenian word for Sunday.

However, in many European countries calendars almost always show Monday as the first day of the week.^[3]

In the Persian calendar, Sunday is the second day of the week. However, it is called "number one" as counting starts from zero; the first day - Saturday - is denoted as 00.

ISO 8601[link]

The international standard ISO 8601 for Representation of dates and times states that Monday is the first day of the week.

Sunday and Sabbath[link]

Christians from very early times have had differences of opinion on the question of whether Sabbath should be observed on a Saturday or a Sunday. The issue does not arise for Jews, for whom "Shabbat" is unquestionably on Saturday, nor for Muslims whose day of assembly (jumu'ah) is on a Friday.

The first given evidence for a differentiation, between traditional Jewish "Shabbat" observance and the religious observance of the first day of the week, appears in Acts 20:7 where the disciples met and "broke bread" together. Some believe this was a participation in the ordinance of the sacrament. Seventh-day Sabbatarians say that the believers met on all days of the week to "break bread" together for the sake of meals and fellowship, such as in Acts 2:46, regarding the incident in Acts 20:7 as nothing outside of usual practice.

Col. 2:16 suggests that early Christians had been judged by others in their traditions of eating foods and in observance of particulars of Sabbath and festivals. Also, the Jews had defined "forty minus one" works to be abstained from on "Shabbat," and Jesus and his disciples had been accused of breaking some of these customs during his ministry.

The Apostle John also refers to the "Lord's Day" ("kuriake hemera") in Rev. 1:10. "Kuriake," meaning "Lord's," later became the Greek word for Sunday. However, in light of the texts Mark 2:28 and Luke 6:5 it is seen that Jesus himself (as the Son of Man) claimed to be the Lord of the Sabbath, and that day fell on the seventh day. Some early Christians observed Sabbath on Saturday, while others gathered for worship on Sunday. However, in AD 363 a seventh-day Sabbath was prohibited by Canon 29 of the Council of Laodicea.^[4]

The ancient Romans traditionally used the eight-day nundinal cycle, a market week, but in the time of Augustus, the seven-day week also came into use. The two weeks were used side-by-side until at least the Calendar of 354 and probably later,^[5] despite the official adoption of Sunday as a day of rest by Constantine in AD 321.^[6] Mithraism kept Sunday holy in honor of Mithras.^[7] On 7 March 321, Constantine I, Rome's first Christian Emperor (see Constantine I and Christianity), decreed that Sunday would be observed as the Roman day of rest:

On the venerable Day of the Sun let the magistrates and people residing in cities rest, and let all workshops be closed. In the country, however, persons engaged in agriculture may freely and lawfully continue their pursuits; because it often happens that another day is not so suitable for grain-sowing or vine-planting; lest by neglecting the proper moment for such operations the bounty of heaven should be lost.^[8]

Many Christians today consider Sunday a holy day and a day of rest and church-attendance. Denominations which observe Saturday as Sabbath are called "Sabbatarians", but the name "Sabbatarian" has also been claimed by Christians, especially Protestants, who believe Sunday must be observed with just the sort of rigorous abstinence from work associated with "Shabbat". For most Christians the custom and obligation of Sunday rest is not as strict. A minority of Christians do not regard the day they attend church as important, so long as they attend, as the apostles and disciples gathered on Sundays, on Saturdays, and whenever they could. There is considerable variation in the observance of Sabbath rituals and restrictions, but some cessation of normal weekday activities is customary.

In Orthodox Christian families and communities, working and requiring somebody else to work are prohibited, including buying goods or services, use of public transport, gardening or driving or washing a car.^{[verification needed]} Allowed exceptions include religious services, electricity, and urgent medical matters. In Roman Catholicism, those who work in the medical field, those in law enforcement, and soldiers in a war zone are dispensed from the usual obligation to avoid work on Sunday.

The majority of Christians observe Sunday as the Lord's day. However, throughout the history of Christianity, some groups have continued or revived the observance of a Saturday Sabbath. More recently, Christians in the Seventh-day Adventist, Seventh Day Baptist, and Church of God (Seventh-Day) denominations, as well as many Messianic Jews have revived the practice of abstaining from work and gathering for worship on Saturdays.

Many languages lack separate words for "Saturday" and "Sabbath." Eastern Orthodox churches, as well as many Roman Catholics, distinguish between Sabbath (Saturday) and Sunday, which some Christians traditionally call the Lord's Day (Rev. 1:10). However, many Protestants and Roman Catholics do refer to Sunday as Sabbath, though this is by no means a universal practice among Protestants and Catholics. Quakers traditionally refer to Sunday as "First Day" eschewing the pagan origin of the English name, while referring to Saturday as the "Seventh day".

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. The same evening anticipation applies to other major solemnities and feasts, and is an echo of the Jewish practice of starting the new day at sunset ("Shabbat" starts on Friday night).

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. During this time, the dismissal at all services begin with the words, "May Christ our True God, who rose from the dead ...." Anyone who wishes to receive Holy Communion at Divine Liturgy on Sunday morning is required to attend Vespers the night before (see Eucharistic discipline). Among Orthodox Christians, Sunday is considered to be a "Little Pascha" (Easter), and because of the Paschal joy, the making of prostrations is forbidden, except in certain circumstances. The Russian word for Sunday is "Voskresenie," meaning "Resurrection day." The Greek word for Sunday is "Kyriake" (the "Lord's Day").

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

Common occurrences on Sunday[link]

In government and business[link]

In the United States and Canada, government buildings are closed on Sunday, with a lesser number being closed on Saturday as well. Businesses also tend to close or are open for shorter periods of the day on Sunday than on other days of the week. Non-retail offices such as corporate headquarters are typically closed on both Saturdays and Sundays.

National and regional elections in Belgium and Peru are always on Sunday, because voting is mandatory.

In media[link]

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.

North American Radio stations often play specialty radio shows such as Casey Kasem's countdown or other nationally syndicated radio shows that may differ from their regular weekly music patterns on Sunday morning and/or Sunday evening. In the United Kingdom, there is a Sunday tradition of chart shows on BBC Radio 1 and commercial radio; this originates in the broadcast of chart shows and other populist material on Sundays by Radio Luxembourg when the Reithian BBC's Sunday output consisted largely of solemn and religious programmes.

Many American, Australian and British television networks and stations also broadcast their political interview shows on Sunday mornings.

In sports[link]

Major League Baseball usually schedules all Sunday games in the daytime except for the nationally televised Sunday Night Baseball matchup. Certain historically religious cities such as Boston and Baltimore among others will schedule games no earlier than 1:35 PM to ensure time for people who go to religious service in the morning can get to the game in time.

In the United States, professional American football is usually played on Sunday, although Saturday (via Saturday Night Football), Monday (via Monday Night Football), and Thursday (via Thursday Night Football or Thanksgiving) see some professional games. College football usually occurs on Saturday, and high-school football tends to take place on Friday night or Saturday afternoon.

In the UK, some club and Premier League football matches and tournaments usually take place on Sundays. Rugby matches and tournaments usually take place in club grounds or parks on Sunday mornings. It is not uncommon for church attendance to shift on days when a late morning or early afternoon game is anticipated by a local community.

One of the remains of religious segregation in the Netherlands is seen in amateur football: The Saturday-clubs are by and large Protestant Christian clubs, who were not allowed to play on Sunday. The Sunday-clubs were in general Catholic and working class clubs, whose players had to work on Saturday and therefore could only play on Sunday.