why is the history of the world/civilization studied using BC/AD?
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I’m going to try to give you a more detailed answer that just “because that’s what medieval Europeans used” and tell you why they used it.
Even today it’s hard to tell exactly when something happened. When they created this calendar system in the 6th century they felt they could accurately count back to the birth of Christ by tracing the papal lineage (among other methods). Beyond that it was very difficult to determine when something happened due to different dating systems. For example, the Romans would rarely use a specific year. Instead they would write “in the fourth year of the reign of X.” But the Europeans often wouldn’t know when X reigned or the order of the Roman succession. They did not have access to the historical documents that we have today recovered. So essentially they said, “we know for certain when this event happened and how many years there have been since that event. Therefore will count everything from there going forward and everything else we can figure out later.” That is what led to AD, the number of years Christ has reigned, and BC, everything before Christ.
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