May 2025: five Saturdays, five Fridays, five Thursdays
May 2025 began on a Thursday and made the most of it. Thirty-one days in that alignment leave you holding five Thursdays, five Fridays and five Saturdays, nine weekend days in all. No Thursday-start month can offer more. Business days still numbered 22, across ISO weeks 18 to 22. The month spent its riches well. Two of its Saturdays carried a cup final each, and the last one closed the European season.
The weekend arithmetic
Thursdays opened the month: the 1st, 8th, 15th, 22nd and 29th. Fridays followed on the 2nd, 9th, 16th, 23rd and 30th. Saturdays completed the staircase on the 3rd, 10th, 17th, 24th and 31st. Nine weekend days, 22 business days, and a month that ended on a Saturday night.
A month that closes on a Saturday, as this one did on 31 May, hands the week after a Sunday opening. June 2025 duly began on a Sunday. May, meanwhile, gave the wall planner four complete weekends plus one spare Saturday, the 31st.
Print the month at A4 and the Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays read like a staircase down the right edge. Four Sundays against five Saturdays is the quiet asymmetry; by month's end the weekend had run out of Sundays.
Two Saturdays, two finals
Saturday 17 May carried the FA Cup final at Wembley. Crystal Palace beat Manchester City 1-0 for the club's first major trophy in its 120-year history. The same evening, in Basel, Austria's JJ won the Eurovision Song Contest with Wasted Love. One Saturday, two very different sorts of glory.
Saturday 31 May closed the account. Paris Saint-Germain beat Inter Milan 5-0 in Munich, the biggest winning margin in a European Cup final. It was the club's first European Cup, and the season was over.
A new pope and a full moon
On Thursday 8 May, cardinals elected Robert Prevost of Chicago as Pope Leo XIV. He was the first American to lead the Catholic Church, chosen on the conclave's second day. Four days later the full moon rose on Monday 12 May, the one almanacs call the Flower Moon. A busy week for anyone keeping a diary of firsts.
Politics filled the margins. Friedrich Merz finally won the German chancellorship on Tuesday 6 May, on a second ballot, after failing the first. Australia re-elected Anthony Albanese's government on Saturday 3 May, the first prime minister in two decades to win consecutive terms. Markets steadied on Monday 12 May when Washington and Beijing agreed a 90-day tariff truce in Geneva.
Five Saturdays, five Fridays and five Thursdays, and the month still ended on time. June picked up on a Sunday and started counting the days to the solstice.