This might be a stupid question, but for that I’ve also been afraid to ask. But, I’ve been confused most of the time when people say “x-th century”. Why is the period 1900-1999 called the 20th century and not 19th century?
>In popular perception and practice, centuries are structured by grouping years based on sharing the ‘hundreds’ digit(s). In this model, the n-th century starts with the year that ends in “00” and ends with the year ending in “99”; for example, the years 1900 to 1999, in popular culture, constitute the 20th century. *(Wikipedia)*
What does it mean ‘in popular culture’? Why couldn’t, let’s say, the 19th century constitutes years within 1900-1999 and not the years before?
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> What does it mean ‘in popular culture’?
What they mean is that if you ask most people what century the year 2000 was in, they’ll say it’s in the 21st century. That’s the popular definition.
The strict formal definition is that the year 2000 was actually the last year of the 20th century, not the first year of the 21st.
This is because there was no year zero. The first year AD was Year 1. So the first century AD must have lasted from 1-100, because 1-99 would be only 99 years.
So the second century must have started in the 101. The third century started on the year 201. Carry this forwards and you see that the 21st century started on the year 2001.
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