Written by Tadashi
Modified & Updated: 28 Apr 2024
Reviewed by Jessica Corbett
If you study or work, you might not be too fond of Mondays. Arguably the most hated day of the week, Mondays usually signify the restart of your routine from the rest and recreation of the weekends. However, there’s more to Monday than being the bane of your existence. Find out the most random things that happened on Mondays with these Monday facts.
- ISO 8601 lists Monday as the first day of the week.
- Monday is traditionally the second day of the week after Sunday.
- There are usually 52 Mondays in a year.
- Years that start on a Monday have 53 Mondays, however.
- Leap years will have 53 Mondays if the first 2 days of the year has a Monday.
- Eastern Orthodox Churches dedicate Mondays to the angels.
- Eastern Orthodox Churches also start Lent on Ash Monday instead of Ash Wednesday.
- The Church of Latter-Day Saints usually has its believers spend Monday evenings as Family Home Evening (FHE).
- Islam encourages followers to fast on Mondays along with Thursdays.
- Statistics show that more people in Britain commit suicide on Mondays than on any other day of the week.
- Statistics also show that the US Stock Market tends to rise on Mondays.
- Internet use in Britain peaks on Mondays.
- More Britons call in sick on Mondays than in the rest of the week.
- Britons traditionally did their laundry on Mondays during the Victorian Era.
- Americans tend to feel unattractive on Mondays than on any other day of the week.
- You can rearrange the letters of the word Monday into dynamo.
- Scientists surprised themselves when they discovered people weigh more on Mondays than on any other day of the week.
- In Britain, Monday also passes as slang for a big and heavy sledgehammer.
- The comic character Garfield has a reputation for not liking Mondays.
- More people also go online shopping on Mondays than on any other day of the week.
Monday Facts Infographics
Monday has an association with the Moon.
The Latin term for Monday is Dies Lunae, which literally translates to Day of the Moon. The Old English word Monandaeg inherited this and passed it on to the Middle English word Monenday. From there, we have the modern English word Monday. Old English also influenced Germanic languages, with the Old German word Manetag leading to the modern German word Montag.
Monday has a special history in Islam.
For one thing, Islamic tradition dictates that the prophet Muhammad was actually born on a Monday. That same tradition also claims that he received the Quran from God on a Monday. Other traditions also record that the prophet regularly fasted on Mondays.
Scientists consider it less likely to rain on Mondays than on any other day of the week.
The science behind it isn’t completely clear yet, though. The main working theory today is that Mondays carry less pollution over the weekend. This means less dust in the air, which can actually influence rainfall.
There’s actually a Superman novel named Miracle Monday.
Written by Eliott S. Magin, it was first published in 1981, as additional material to the Christopher Reeve series of Superman films. The novel involves Superman fighting a demon from hell who wanted to break Superman’s sense of morality.
Specifically, the demon wanted to force Superman into killing someone. In the end, Superman succeeds in banishing the demon back to hell, on the third Monday of May. This is what the novel’s name of Miracle Monday refers to. Witness the moral dilemma for yourself when you grab a copy here.
Several sporting and entertainment shows have specials on Monday nights in the USA.
For one example, there’s Monday Night Football by the NFL, currently airing on ESPN. Another example is Monday Night Raw, produced by the WWE, which airs on the USA Network.
Jesse Owens won the first of his historic gold medals on a Monday.
Jesse Owens was a track-and-field athlete who competed for his native USA at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. He won 4 gold medals during the competition, and in doing so dashed Nazi Germany’s hopes of using the Olympics to trumpet white superiority on the world stage.
The USA dropped a nuclear bomb on Hiroshima on a Monday.
On August 6th, 1945, the USA dropped a bomb that exploded with the force of 20,000 tons of TNT and killed between 90,000 to 150,000 people in Hiroshima. Along with the nuclear bombing of Nagasaki 3 days later, it forced Japan to surrender to the Allies and ended WWII.
The decision to use nuclear weapons caused much debate on its ethics and necessity. However, historians generally agree that it saved more lives than it killed, as it made an actual invasion of Japan that would have killed millions of people unnecessary.
Hershey Chocolate Company made the first kisses on a Monday.
Almost everyone in the world knows about Hershey’s famous chocolate kisses. One of the sweeter Monday facts is that Hershey’s first made Kisses on the Monday of July 1st, 1907.
Segregation became illegal on a Monday.
On May 17th, 1954, the US Supreme Court ruled the segregation of schools based on skin color as unconstitutional. Naturally, this caused outrage from white supremacists, with many school principals refusing to follow the court’s order to desegregate campuses.
This, in turn, led to US President Dwight D. Eisenhower to order US troops to forcibly desegregate schools, and to escort colored students to schools for their own protection.
YouTube became a reality on a Monday.
YouTube is such a huge part not just of the internet, but of 21st century culture as a whole, which makes it hard to imagine a time when it didn’t exist. However, Youtube didn’t really become a reality until February 14th, 2005. On that day, YouTube’s domain came to life and has only grown and become a part of everyone’s life ever since.
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