In olden eras dates were reckoned as being the the n-th year of the reign of some ruler or after some big event like a war, flood, volcano. Then around what we today think of as the year 532 (or 525, 526, or even 534 according to some), Pope John I and the Russian monk Dionysius Exiguus, aka Dennis The Short, "Fixed" the Calendar as beginning with the birth of Jesus Christ -- well, sort of. He set that year as 1-Anno Domini or 1-AD (or the following year depending on which essay you read); he set the year prior as 1-Before Christ or 1-BC -- leaving NO room for year 0. Thus the first 100 years numbered 001-100 where called the 1-st Century; and the next 100 years numbered 101-200 where called the 2-nd Century; which meant that most the years beginning with 18xx were in the 19th Century. Purists will claim that the years of the form nn00 belong to the century prior to that in which lie the subsequent years of the form nn01, nn02; and their claim is based on the fact that there was NO year assigned the number of zero. Similarly those same folk claim that years of the form n000 belong to the millennium prior to that in which lie the subsequent years with the form n001, nn02. If Dionysius had established a year 0, then a few things might be different, the nn00 years would be in the later century - WHERE THEY BELONG, but the concept that the n-th century is chock full of years numbered (n-1)xx would still be with us, because there is no language acceptablity for the 0-th Century. Personally, I do NOT at all object to the concept of there having only been 99 years in the 1-st Century; so what; who cares; it makes no REAL difference to anything. Agreeing to such would place the year nn00 in the same century with its associated years of nn01, nn02 and the year n000 in the same millennium as n001, n002. This would be consistent with the acceptance by most reasonable people that the decade of the "Roaring Twenties" consisted of the years 1920-1929 inclusive, which seems perfectly prudent; and such should be applicable to the larger chunks of Centuries and Millennia. Also it would jibe with our acceptance that the time of 12:00am/pm is on the same side of the meridian as its 12:01, 12:02 associates. RESOLUTION:: Whereas- modern re-evaluations of the work of Dionysius now consider that he missed the birth of Jesus Christ by about 4 years, and Whereas- there is some consideration as to the accuracy of date when Dionysius claims to have made his decisions, and Whereas- there is absolutely nothing critical about the consideration of on which side of the fence these boundary years should be, THEREFORE- be it resolved that the boundaries between such periods should be at the point where there is a change in the most digits of the number designation, and hence for the sake of consistency ... .. that the time 1200 is on the same side of the meridian as 1201 .. that the year nnn0 is in the same Decade as nnn1 .. that the year nn00 is in the same Century as nn01 .. that the year n000 is in the same Millennium as n001 FURTHERMORE- it should be noted that ... .. those who do not subscribe to this will miss a LOT of BIG PARTIES, and .. that NONE of this makes any difference in the real world. Somewhere in the late 20-th Century some group, in attempting to remove all references to things held dear by some and considered offensive by others, changed some of the names to be "Politically Correct", whereupon .. .. AD became CE for "Common Era" .. and BC became BCE for "Before the Common Era" Bibliography - - (some may have vanished by the time that you read this) (most with thoughts on the subject disagree with my reasoning, but what the heck) http://agards-bible-timeline.com/q4_ad_bc_ce.html http://webexhibits.org/daylightsaving/index.html http://webexhibits.org/calendars/ http://www.amarillonet.com/stories/051198/opi_short.shtml http://ukdb.web.aol.com/hutchinson/encyclopedia/43/M0016243.htm http://www.wildernesstravel.com/millenn.htm http://www.georgian.net/rally/madness.html http://www.ianchadwick.com/essays/madness.html http://aa.usno.navy.mil/faq/docs/millennium.php http://www.pufori.org/news/9903/nws990301_28.htm http://www.op.org/op/ebaf/inwhat.htm http://www.abilene2000.com/wire/confus0301.html http://www.wolverton-mountain.com/articles/millenium.htm http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/97jul/zero.htm http://www.huronia.net/rally/madness.html" http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN%3D0300066872/lynnsgroupatthemA/102-9992918-0071255 http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Delphi/7336/millenium.html http://www2.pitnet.net/netty/scripturefiles/christsbirthday.html http://www.mormons.org/basic/christ/birth/april6_eom.htm http://www.trinityprep.org/mcclureb/CALENDAR/YEAR.HTM