Calendars, weeks (Was: Eng./Fr. counting system)

Isidora Zamora wrote at 2003-09-16 12:49:04 (-0400)
 > > > >Was this one of the reasons that the 10-day week of the
 > > > >Revolutionary Calendar didn't succeed as well as the rest of
 > > > >metric system? What other factors were there?
 > > >
 > > > You'll need to ask a Russian (or at least someone from the
 > > > former Soviet Union)
 > >
 > >Um, I think he was talking about the French Revolution.
 >

From the Calendar FAQ: (http://www.tondering.dk/claus/cal/node8.html)

 | A year consists of 365 or 366 days, divided into 12 months of 30 days
 | each, followed by 5 or 6 additional days. The months were:
 |
 | 1.Vendémiaire
 | 2.Brumaire
 | 3.Frimaire
 | 4.Nivôse
 | 5.Pluviôse
 | 6.Ventôse
 | 7.Germinal
 | 8.Floréal
 | 9.Prairial
 | 10.Messidor
 | 11.Thermidor
 | 12.Fructidor
 |
 | The year was not divided into weeks, instead each month was divided
 | into three décades of 10 days, of which the final day was a day of
 | rest. This was an attempt to de-Christianize the calendar, but it was
 | an unpopular move, because now there were 9 work days between each day
 | of rest, whereas the Gregorian Calendar had only 6 work days between
 | each Sunday.
 |
 | The ten days of each décade were called, respectively, Primidi, Duodi,
 | Tridi, Quartidi, Quintidi, Sextidi, Septidi, Octidi, Nonidi, Decadi.
 |
 | The 5 or 6 additional days followed the last day of Fructidor and were
 | called:
 |
 | 1. Fête de la vertu (Celebration of virtue)
 | 2. Fête du génie (Celebration of genius)
 | 3. Fête du travail (Celebration of labour)
 | 4. Fête de l'opinion (Celebration of opinion)
 | 5. Fête des récompenses (Celebration of rewards)
 | 6. Jour de la révolution (Day of the revolution) (the leap day)

 > <laughing at myself>
 >
 > Now everyone here knows that I don't know French history :)
 >
 > In any case, I have heard of the Soviets using 5 and 6 day weeks at certain
 > points.
 >
 > Isidora
 >

(http://www.tondering.dk/claus/cal/node7.html#SECTION00790000000000000000)

 | The Soviet Union has used both a 5-day and a 6-day week. In 1929-30
 | the USSR gradually introduced a 5-day week. Every worker had one
 | day off every week, but there was no fixed day of rest. On 1
 | September 1931 this was replaced by a 6-day week with a fixed day
 | of rest, falling on the 6th, 12th, 18th, 24th, and 30th day of each
 | month (1 March was used instead of the 30th day of February, and
 | the last day of months with 31 days was considered an extra working
 | day outside the normal 6-day week cycle). A return to the normal
 | 7-day week was decreed on 26 June 1940.

The Calendar FAQ as a whole also has some fairly detailed information
on the Christian (Julian/Gregorian), Hebrew, Islamic, Persian, Mayan
and Chinese calendars:
http://www.tondering.dk/claus/cal/calendar26.html
I've had it in my bookmarks for a while, and I thought it might be a
useful resource for several of the topics in this thread.