Days of the Week

Photo by MWLS Graphics

Working out the ‘day of the week’ for any date is relatively straightforward. If we ignore leap years for the moment, any year will follow one of seven different date patterns — each pattern depending on the 'day of the month' on which the first Sunday of January falls.

For convenience, we'll give each of the seven patterns a letter. These are shown in Table 1:

Table 1

In Pattern 'A', the first Sunday of January falls on the 1st; the first Sunday of February falls on the 5th; the first Sunday of March falls on the 5th; the first Sunday of April falls on the 2nd etc.

Using this method, you can work out the ‘day of the week’ for any date in that year. Table 2 gives the date patterns for the years 2023–2027

Table 2

Because 2024 is a leap year, it has a double date pattern. This means that Pattern ‘B’ should be used for January and February and Pattern ‘C’ should be used for the rest of the year.

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