Once upon a time, there was a monk named Dionysius Exiguus. He decided to calculate the exact year that Jesus Christ was born. He calculated that it was 525 years before his year at the time.
That year of Jesus Christ’s birth became the focal point for numbering the years. Every after that point was called “The year of our Lord” (“anno domini” in Latin). Every year before that was called “Before Christ”. Historians used the abbreviations “AD” and “BC”. Everything was fine and this numbering system of identifying the years in history was widely used.
But there was a problem. Modern scholars checked blank’s math and found out that blank had been four years off. According to blank’s numbering system Jesus Christ was born in the year 4 BC. By this time blanks numbering system had been so widely used that it was just too disruptive to revise the year numbers. So, blanks numbering system remained and it remains in effect today
Then came another problem. A couple of generations ago historians decided that the numbering system was too Christian. After all it was based on the life of Jesus Christ. So, they decided to remove the terms “Anno Domini “ and “Before Christ” and replace them with “After Common Era” (ACE) and “Before Common Era”. So, what was the common era? Well, it turns out that this is just a fictional construct in order to get around the Christianity of the year numbers.
My view is that history is hard enough to remember without having to learn fictional concepts, too. Whatever the problems with having a numbering system based on Jesus Christ’s birth, at least you have a numbering system which attempts to be based on something historical. That’s why we’re sticking to the traditional system of numbering the years.
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