What day is it?
The children's nursery rhyme which tells us what a persons characteristics are like given the day they were born on goes like this:
Monday's child is fair of face
Tuesday's child is full of grace
Wednesday's child is full of woe
Thursday's child has far to go
Friday's child is loving and giving
Saturday's child works hard for their living
but the child that is born on the Sabbath day is
bonnie and blithe, good and gay

 

On what day were you born? Use the table below to calculate your birth day.

 

Want to work out the day of any date? Here's the algorithm (Of course, although this will give you the day on any given date, it is only accurate for dates from the 15th October 1582 which was the first day in our calendar, the Gregorian calendar):
For today's date

Write down the last two digits in the year = A

Divide A by 4 (ignore remainders) = B
0

Add 1 to B if the century year is divisible by 400 (was a leap year)
e.g. In 2014, add 1 to B since 2000 is a leap year. = C

If the year is a leap year and your date is in January or February, subtract 1 = D

Look at the table on the right to get the months value = E

Write down the months date = F

Write down the century value (see table opposite) = G

Add A, D, E, F and G = H

Find the remainder when you divide H by 7 = J


If J = 0 then the day is Sunday
If J = 1 then the day is Monday
If J = 2 then the day is Tuesday
If J = 3 then the day is Wednesday
If J = 4 then the day is Thursday
If J = 5 then the day is Friday
If J = 6 then the day is Saturday
Today is (obviously)

Month Value

Jan = 0

Jul = 6

Feb = 3

Aug = 3

Mar = 3

Sep = 5

Apr = 6

Oct = 0

May = 1

Nov = 3

Jun = 4

Dec = 5

 

Century Value

1400s, 1800s, 2200s
2

1500s, 1900s, 2300s
0

1600s, 2000s, 2400s
5

1700s, 2100s, 2500s
4

The way the Sun works and its effect on our time

Find out about the history behind our calendar.

The Ephemerides server of the Institut de mécanique céleste has a whole host of other resources.

 

next (basic operations)