A prologue is kind of a stage but not really. Tour de France prologues are generally between 5 and 9km in length. Historically the Tour has used prologues most years since (arguably) 1967. At first a prologue-esque time trial was considered stage 1a, and when that wrapped up the peloton would go back to the start line for a mass-start stage, called 1b. Riders don't like doing two stages in a day, so in 1971 the Tour started running the prologue on its own, and by 1974 the word "prologue" began appearing in place of a stage number. If the prologue was Saturday, then stage 1 was Sunday.
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