Wednesday "Germanic Mercury". The Latin name dates to the late 2nd or early 3rd century. It is a calque of Greek ("heméra Hérmou"), a term first attested, together with the system of naming the seven weekdays after the seven classical planets, in the "Anthologiarum" by Vettius Valens (c. AD 170). The Latin name is reflected directly in the weekday name in most modern Romance languages: "Mércuris" (Sardinian), "mercredi" (French), "mercoledì" (Italian), "miércoles" (Spanish), "miercuri" (Romanian), "dimecres" (Catalan), "Marcuri" or "Mercuri" (Corsican). In Welsh it is Dydd Mercher, meaning Mercury's Day. The German name for the day, "Mittwoch" (literally: "mid-week"), replaced the
German Unity Day choice to commemorate the reunification could have been the day the Berlin Wall came down: 9 November 1989, which coincided with the anniversary of the proclamation of the German Republic in 1918, and the defeat of Hitler's first coup in 1923. However, 9 November was also the anniversary of the first large-scale Nazi-led pogroms against Jews in 1938 ("Kristallnacht"), so the day was considered inappropriate as a national holiday. (See November 9 in German history.) Therefore, 3 October 1990, the day of the formal reunification, was chosen instead and replaced the "Day of German Unity" on 17 June, the national