this post was submitted on 17 Apr 2024
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Please explain my confused me like I'm 5 (0r 4 or 6).

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[โ€“] [email protected] 54 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Yes. They skipped right over. It confused many people at the time: a whole year of their lives, gone. Many centuries later when zero was invented, an explanation was finally offered as to why that happened.

[โ€“] [email protected] 16 points 7 months ago (1 children)
[โ€“] [email protected] 7 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Serious answer about what the year would have been in 1 AD, according to 63-year-old Emporer Augustus: ~~DCCLIV~~ 754 Ab Urbe Condita

That means "from the founding of the city" - they based their calendar on the mythical founding of Rome, as calculated by Verro, who himself was not long dead at that point. Before that, they just counted the years of each person's reign Japanese-style. Probably other people in the ancient world had older calendars.