Time - Man of the Year/Time_Man_of_the_Year_Compact_Publishing_3YX-Disc-1_Compact_Publishing_1993.iso/moy/101592/1015992.000

Text File | 1993-04-08 | 2KB | 46 lines

                                                                                SPECIAL ISSUE: MILLENNIUM -- BEYOND THE YEAR 2000 

THE GREAT EVENT, Page 8

Counting the Years



    Purists like to point out that, technically speaking, the
beginning of the new millennium does not really occur on Jan. 1,
2000, but on Jan. 1, 2001. This is because there is no year zero
in the Christian era, on which historical calendars are
calculated. The first year of the era is called A.D. 1, and the
one immediately preceding is 1 B.C. Therefore, by the time the
calendar reaches Jan. 1, 2000, only 1,999 years will have
elapsed since A.D.'s starting point. The same phenomenon occurs
as each new century is recorded. In popular observance,
however, the simultaneous turning of the zeros marks the
beginning of each new century, and very few of the world's
citizens will wait for Jan. 1, 2001, to mark the millennium's
beginning.

    In fact, numerous other systems have been devised to keep
track of the passage of the years. The oldest in continuous
use, China's lunisolar cycle, assigns an animal to each year
based on the Chinese zodiac: the Year of the Tiger, Horse and
so on. One of the longest counts is Judaism's reckoning of time
from the creation of the world, by which the year 2000 will
begin during 5760. For the world's Muslims, it will be the year
1420, counted from the Prophet Muhammad's Hegira (migration) to
Medina.

    All countries will join in using the year 2000 on their
civil calendars, despite the number's Christian basis.
Paradoxically, although Jesus' actual birth date is unknown, it
is almost certain that he was born several years "before
Christ." This anomaly occurred because of an error in the
calculations of Denis the Little, the 6th century monk who
decided that history should be split into B.C. and A.D.