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State-mandated rest days

State-mandated rest days are widespread. Laws of the Han dynasty (206 BCE – 220 CE) required imperial officials to rest on every mu (every fifth day), within a ten-day Chinese week. The rest day was changed to huan or xún (every tenth day) in the Tang dynasty (618–907).

The reform calendar of the French Revolution was used from 1793 to 1805. It used ten-day weeks, contained in twelve months of three weeks each; the five or six extra days needed to approximate the tropical year were placed at the end of the year and did not belong to any month. The tenth day of each week, décadi, replaced Sunday as the day of rest and festivity in France.

From 1929 to 1931, the Soviet Union mandated a five-day week in which each day designated by color as a state rest day for a different 20% of the workforce; members of the same family did not usually have the same rest day. Three weeks each year were longer (six or seven days instead of five), because those weeks were interrupted by holidays. From 1931 to 1940, the Soviets mandated a six-day week, with state rest days for all upon the 6th, 12th, 18th, 24th, and 30th of each Gregorian month, as well as upon March 1. This also necessitated varying weeks of five to seven days over the year.

Among many calendar reform proposals that eliminate the constant seven-day week in exchange for simplified calculation of calendrical data like weekday names for given dates, some retain Sabbatical influences. The Hermetic Lunar Week Calendar uses moon phases, resulting in weeks of six to nine days. The International Fixed Calendar and World Calendar both use 364-day years containing exactly 52 weeks (each starting on a day designated as Sunday), with an additional one or two intercalary "blank" days not designated as part of any week (Year Day and Leap Day in the International Fixed Calendar; Worldsday and Leapyear Day in the World Calendar). Supporters of reform sought to accommodate Sabbatical observance by retaining the modified week and designating the intercalary days as additional Sabbaths or holidays; however, religious leaders held that such days disrupt the traditional seven-day weekly cycle. This unresolved issue contributed to the cessation of calendar reform activities in the 1930s (International Fixed Calendar) and again in 1955 (World Calendar), though supporters of both proposals remain.