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Finding The Day of The Week
Finding The Day of The Week
When I was growing up way back in the '90s, I used to watch a show called "Figure It Out." It was a sort of game show that would feature a kid with a special talent, and the celebrity panelists would have to, well, figure out what it was. On one episode, there was a boy who could tell you the day of the week that a given date fell on. I remember being absolutely amazed. I had no idea how he did it. It turns out that it's quite easy to determine the day of the week from a given date. In fact, you can do it in your head with a little mental math and a few simple memorizations. Read on for a quick background on the algorithm. And don't worry: we'll get to the formula soon enough.
Date
3/4 28/29 0 4 9 6 11 8 5 10 7 12
There's one more little thing you need to know. Each century has an "anchor day" that you will need to memorize as follows. Luckily, there are only four that you need to remember because the anchor days repeat every four centuries. Centuries Anchor day
...1700s, 2100s, 2500s... Sunday ...1800s, 2200s, 2600s... Friday ...1900s, 2300s, 2700s... Wednesday (remember: "We-in-dis-day") ...2000s, 2400s, 2800s... Tuesday (remember: "Y-Tue-K") The two you will probably need to know the most are those for the 1900s (1900-1999) and the 2000s (2000-2099). You can remember that the anchor day for the 1900s is "We-in-dis-day" because most of us were born during that century. Likewise, you can remember that the anchor day for the 2000s is Tuesday with the mnemonic "Y-Tue-K" (remember Y2K?).
The Math
Yes, you do need to use a little math in order to do this. Here's the formula, broken down stepby-step. In this example, we'll find which day of the week July 13, 1989 fell on. 1. Divide the last two digits of the year by 12. 89 divided by 12 is 7, with 5 left over. 2. Find how many 4's go into the remainder evenly. 5 divided by 4 is 1, with a remainder that we ignore. 3. Add these three numbers. 7 + 5 + 1 = 13. 4. Divide the sum by 7 and take the remainder. 13 divided by 7 is 1, with a remainder of 6. 5. Add the remainder to the century's anchor day to find the year's Doomsday. Wendesday + 6 = Tuesday. 6. Use the month's Doomsday to find the day you need. July's Doomsday is 7/11, a Tuesday, so July 13 is a Thursday. Let's try another example by verifying that today, December 30, 2010, is a Thursday. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 10 divided by 12 is 0, with a remainder of 10. 4 goes into the remainder 2 times. 0 + 10 + 2 = 12. 12 divided by 7 is 1, with a remainder of 5. Tuesday + 5 = Sunday. Therefore, 2010's Doomsday is Sunday. Because December 12 is a Sunday, then December 30, 18 days later, is a Thursday.
Now it's your turn! Find the day of the week for the following dates. (If you need to check your answers, you can use the calculator at the bottom of the page.)
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.
The first Earth Day was observed on April 22, 1970. Napoleon was defeated at Waterloo on June 18, 1815. James Joyce's novel Ulysses takes place on June 16, 1904. The United States declared independence from Great Britain on July 4, 1776. A total solar eclipse will occur over the contintental United States on August 21, 2017. The first humans landed on the moon on July 20, 1969. John Horton Conway, the inventor of the Doomsday algorithm, was born on December 26, 1937 -- a Doomsday, as it turns out. 8. Millard Fillmore, the 13th President of the United States, was born on January 7, 1800. (Careful: was it a leap year?) 9. Gold was first discovered in California on January 24, 1849. 10. The Second Continental Congress met in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, on September 27, 1777, making that city the capital of the United States for one day. 11. The muntiny on the Bounty was led by Fletcher Christian, who later named his son Thursday October Christian because he was born on the second Thursday of October 1790. What date was this? 12. Thursday October Christian died on April 21, 1831. What day of the week was it? 13. North Korea's Juche calendar, introduced in 1997, counts the years since April 15, 1912, when "Eternal President" Kim Il-sung was born. What day was it? 14. I just found an invitation to a party that I once had. The date of the party is given as Friday, July 11. The year isn't stated, but I know it was between 2001 and 2004. What year was it? 15. Jorn Barger devised the word "weblog" on December 17, 1997. 16. On December 13, 1795, a meteorite landed near the hamlet of Wold Newton in Yorkshire, England. 17. The film Minority Report gives the date April 22, 2054, as a Tuesday. Is this correct? 18. In the movie Heartbreak Ridge, a calendar shows July 21, 1983, as a Sunday. Is this right? 19. In the movie Forrest Gump, the date March 22, 1982, is given as a Saturday. Is this correct? 20. In the film Hairspray, a news broadcast gives the date as Friday, June 5, 1962. Could this be correct? 21. In the film The Hudsucker Proxy, a newspaper dated Monday, December 19, 1958, is shown. Is this the right day of the week? 22. The movie The Wedding Planner gives June 6, 2001, as a Saturday. Is this right? 23. In the movie The Terminator, a character says that May 12, 1984, is a Thursday. Is he right? 24. In O Brother, Where Art Thou?, a calendar shows that July 1937 begins on a Tuesday. Is it correct? 25. In Remember the Titans, the first day of school is given as September 4, 1971. Could there have been school on this date? 26. In My Dog Skip, a scene takes place in a school on September 27, 1942. Could this have been a school day? 27. In The Thirteenth Floor, a newspaper is shown that is dated Monday, June 21, 2024. 28. A pivotal scene in the film Back to the Future takes place at a high school dance on November 12, 1955. Would it have been on a Saturday, as stated?
29. In American Gun, a newspaper gives the date as Thursday, March 18, 1988. 30. In Superman Returns, a newspaper is dated Friday, September 29, 2006. 31. In Raging Bull, a dance is said to take place on Saturday, August 6, 1941. 32. The beginning of The Return of the Living Dead takes place on Friday, July 3, 1984. 33. In Chances Are, a newspaper is dated Sunday, August 7, 1989. 34. In Johnny Mnemonic, a date is given as Thursday, January 17, 2021. 35. In Higher Learning, an event is advertised to take place on Saturday, November 15, 1995. 36. In Phantom of the Paradise, a character mentions that he wanted to commit suicide on Saturday, November 19, 1953. 37. In The Shootist, a newspaper gives the date as Monday, January 22, 1901.
2. 3. 4. 5.
4 / 4 = 1. 5 + 4 + 1 = 10. Sunday + 10 - 15 = Sunday - 5 = Tuesday. April 4 is a Tuesday, so April 23, 19 days later, is a Sunday.
Julian dates are easy because you don't need to remember anchor days or the more complicated leap year rule. So, you should be able to try these: 1. Verify that October 4, 1582 (Julian), and October 15, 1582 (Gregorian), occurred on consecutive days of the week. 2. Verify that September 2, 1752 (Julian), and September 14, 1752 (Gregorian), occurred on consecutive days of the week. 3. The Battle of Hastings occurred on October 14, 1066. 4. In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue. He made his first landing in the New World on October 12 of that year. 5. English poet and playwright William Shakespeare and Spanish author Miguel de Cervantes both died on April 23, 1616, but not on the same day of the week. Find the day of the week that each man died.
Advanced Techniques
This section is optional. It contains tips on finding Doomsdays more quickly if you're able to memorize more things.
Note that some other easy-to-remember Doomsdays are Valentine's Day (February 14), U.S. Independence Day (July 4), Halloween (October 31), and Boxing Day (December 26). Note, however, that February 14 is a Doomsday only in common years.
Memorizing Years
Once you've done Doomsday calculations enough, you might start to memorize the Doomsdays for certain years. Early on in my study of the Doomsday method, I memorized that 1969's Doomsday was Friday. Why? I don't know; I just did. But it's helped me. Consider the satisfaction I got when someone "challenged" me to work out June 6, 1969, and I was able to tell them the answer immediately. It may be convienient to know some of the Gregorian years whose Doomsdays are the same as the anchor day for their century. For example, 1945's Doomsday is Wednesday, just as 1900's was. In the Gregorian calendar, the following years of a century have the same Doomsday as the anchor day for their century: '00, '06, '17, '23, '28, '34, '45, '51, '56, '62, '73, '79, '84, '90. Incidentally, I've discovered that intervals between these years follows a pattern: 6, 11, 6, 5, 6, 11, 6, 5, 6, 11, 6, 5, 6. Using the 1900s as an example, the pattern actually continues into the next century: ...1984, 1990, 2001, 2007, 2012, 2018... This pattern breaks after 2100, probably because it will not be a leap year. It would be interesting to investigate whether any Doomsday (not just those that are anchor days) can be found as a member of a sequence, and whether this extends to the Julian calendar as well. I think the answer is yes to both, but I don't feel like crunching the numbers. Maybe someone reading this can prove it one way or the other.
repeat every four centuries. (As such, the Gregorian calendar repeats every 400 years. Just as December 30, 2010, is a Thursday, so too was December 30, 1610.) If you divide the century digits (the first two digits in four-digit years) by 4, the remainder determines the anchor day. When you 17 by 4, the remainder is 1. Recall that the anchor day for the 1700s is Sunday. When the remainder is 2, the anchor day is Friday. When it's 3, it's Wednesday, and when the remainder is 0 (as in the 2000s), the anchor day is Tuesday. Now for the 6700s: 68 is evenly divisible by 4, so the remainder of 67 divided by 4 is 3. Thus, the anchor day for the 6700s is Wednesday. Now, you should be able to find the day of the week for January 31, 6732. Here's another challenge: January 1, 10,000. (For 5-digit years, the century digits are the first three.)