why is the history of the world/civilization studied using BC/AD?

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why is the history of the world/civilization studied using BC/AD?

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Anonymous 0 Comments

Because it’s the dating system that the biggest part of the world is most familiar with, in day-to-day stuff. It’s 2021 right now, so if I were to see something that was dated 1000 BC/BCE, I could easily look at that and say “Whoa, that was about 3000 years ago!” If I saw something that was dated year 2760 of the Hebrew calendar, I wouldn’t necessarily know it, but that’s actually the same year as 1000 BC – or one year off, depending on date, but whatever. We always work best in the system that we’re most used to.

History has many, many dating systems, from long-lived calendars to things like “in the 5th year of the rule of King X.” It can be really hard to keep track of them mentally. So to make things easy, we translate the year to the system that we’re most familiar with, just like how we (in English-speaking places) might study the history of Germany, or India, or wherever and translate their historical sources into English for study.

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