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The name comes from Middle English Tiwesday, from Old English Tiwes dæg, named after the Nordic god Tyr, who was the approximate equivalent of the Roman war god Mars, and Greek god Ares.

In Latin, it is called "Martis dies" which means "Mars's Day"

In the Greek world, Tuesday (the day of the week of the Fall of Constantinople) is considered an unlucky day. The same is true in the Spanish-speaking world, where a proverb runs: En martes, ni te cases ni te embarques, meaning, "On Tuesday, neither get married nor begin a journey." For both Greeks and Spanish-speakers, the 13th of the month is considered unlucky if it falls on Tuesday, instead of Friday. In Judaism, on the other hand, Tuesday is considered a particularly lucky day, because in the first chapter of Genesis the paragraph about this day contains the phrase "it was good" twice

Fat Tuesday is the designation generally given to the day just prior to the beginning of Lent. Lent is a 40 day time of fasting for many Christians and it always begins on a certain Wedensday prior to Easter. As the day before (always a Tuesday) is the last chance for revelry and also the last chance to use up perishables such as butter, lard and other fats that day has become known as "Mardi Gras" ("Mardi" is "Mars Day" in French, aka "Fat Tuesday").

The word "Tuesday", however, was derived from a wholly different religious tradition. Tyr or Tiw was the Norse God of War. When the Germanic Angles and Saxon's invaded England in the 500's they suplanted a culture that had been heavily influenced by Rome for several hundred years. The day, Tuesday, had already been named for the Roman God of War, Martius (notice in French, Italian, and Spanish - the word for Tuesday is still derivative of the Roman God - Mardi, Martedi and Martes - respectively). When the Germanic tribes conquered England, they laid their own lexicon over that of the Roman's so that the Norse God of War now supplanted the Roman God of War (after all the Norse God was obviously more potent). Thus they called the day of the God of War tiwesdaeg.
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a little something to go with your great day's of the week posts....

Mondays Child

Mondays child is fair of face,
Tuesdays child is full of grace,
Wednesdays child is full of woe,
Thursdays child has far to go,
Fridays child is loving and giving,
Saturdays child works hard for his living,
And the child that is born on the Sabbath day
Is bonny and blithe, and good and gay.

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