Why does History go from BC to AD?

whats the point of it? -- (isnt it much simpler to just go from year 1, and ascend from there...)
Why does History go from BC to AD?
hello. BC = Before Christ, AD = Anno Domini. I think that is correct.
Why does History go from BC to AD?
BC stands for Before Christ, AD stands for some Latin thing which means after Christ's birth.





These things are based on the Christian calender. No one knows exactly for sure when the earth began, so they began on a date that they did know for sure: 0 AD. When someone says 1850 BC, this means 1850 years before 0 AD.
Reply:BC stand for Before Christ and AD is Anno Domini which means the year of our lord.These terms started because of the catholic chuch.If you look at the Chinese and Jewish calendars they do not list BC or AD as suffixes .
Reply:different cultures use different calanders and it would be very hard to determine a year 1. I guess it was easier to pick a date (death of christ) and start from there... but then they were like uhh what about before that... so they made bc. if you think about its really uncreative
Reply:That's the whole trouble. We don't know when year 1 was.


The difference between BC and AD is that the western world has taken the time of Christ as a dividing line. BC signifies the time before Christ, and counts backward from there, so ten years before the time of Christ would be 10 BC, a hundred years before Christ would be 100 BC. AD, or Anno Domino (in the year of our lord) marks the present era. It counts forward. Ten years after the time of Christ is 10 AD, 100 years after is 100 AD. The wording has actually changed in recent years, and it is refered to as 'present era'.
Reply:and what the year 1 ? when would be the year 1 ?? the year 1 is what is important in your civilization : for muslims, it's the year of the hegira (abt 622 AD), for jewish ppl, it's the year God created the world (abt 5000 BC).


you live in a christian civilization (whatever you think abt christianity). so christian ppl think the greatest time in the history of humanity is when God became a human = birth of Jesus = anno 1.


when Jesus was born, roman ppl used the roman calendar, afetr the mythical foundation of Rom in 753 BC (so Jesus was born in year 753 (of the roman calendar, i dont remember abt the jewish calendar).


if christianism didnt have become a great religion, perhaps we would say today we are in the year 2761...


last word, who could say year 1 is the year the world was created... but do you know when ?? i guess if you are jewish, hinduist or atheist your answer would be different.
Reply:becuase they are in sequence like this A`BC`D


ad means real life


bc means tings that happened in our minds,


they are all the things in history that happened to every one!
Reply:Because the church ruled europe which in turn started everything else, they used Christ as the benchmark of time and things that happened. Also in BC it was more prehistoric and in AD things started to happen. And back then in BC, thye counted down....and when it got to zero they started with one again.





.....thats just sorta my point of view
Reply:We don't know when the "Year 1" was. The earth is millions or billions of years old. We don't even know precisely how old the human race is. If we started dating human history from the first known, recorded event, we'd probably have to start renumbering every few years as new discoveries are made. But if we take some major event and date everything according to how long before or after that event it occurred, then new discoveries in antiquity can be dated without forcing a readjustment of the dates of every subsequent event. Before the Western world began dating events as occurring before or after the birth of Christ, the Romans dated events as happening "ab urbe condita" (from the founding of the city, i. e. Rome); the Greeks dated them from the year of the first Olympics, which took place twenty-three years earlier; Jews dated them from the Creation, which was assumed to have taken place about 3000 years before the beginnings of the Greek and Roman calendars; other cultures had other systems. With the adoption of the B. C.-A. D. (or B. C. E.- C. E.) system, the world can largely agree on what happened when.
Reply:First of all the BC/AD thing didn't start until later.





At the time people used to keep time by counting in the reigns of the kings. Like "In the third year of the reign of King Fred" and "in the 12 th year of the reign of King Nebbopolazer". The Romans kept time in A.U.C. from the founding of the Roman Republic.





It wasn't till later that the B.C./A.D. thing started, after Christianity had come to dominate Europe. It was selected becaue the Birth of Christ is the single most important event in human history. Everything else that happens just happens in the temporal world. Empries come, empires go; kings come, kings go, but your salvation through Christ (or your dammnation if you reject Him) is ETERNAL. You live on Earth for maybe 120 years if you are really really lucky, but you will still be in Heaven (or Hell) long after the Sun runs out of hydrogen, turns into a Red Giant, and toasts the whole Earth like a cinder. Therefore the birth of the Eternal King that comes to offer you ETERNAL life is considered to be a bit more important than the birth of any Earthly King.





So that is why the birth of Christ was picked to be the central point in our dating system. There was a time when most people took their faith seriously.





In the past 40 years or so, as it has become trendy to be a non-Christian some historians revolted against this...but they couldn't come up with a better system, so they just went with saying B.C.E. instead of B.C. "B.C.E." stands for "Before the Common Era"... it's politically correct, and frankly a bit stupid in my opinion.





A.D. incidentally is Latin for "Anno Domini" or "In the Year of Our Lord." Not unlike the whole "In the 12 year of reign of Kind Whatshisface" thing...get it?





Incidentally, a lot of historians think that the monks who calculated out the year Christ was born may have made an error... Christ may have been born in the year we consider to be 3 B.C. ... but it is too late to change it now.
Reply:So.........this would be the year 6230 what?...AC?