millenium discussion (WOB)

["Petro, John D (CORP)" <John.Petro@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Allan:
	Sorry (even more so to the group b/c of the lack of BMW content
here) but I must correct you.  A.D., or Anno Domini ("the year of our lord"
in Latin)  tracks the birth of Christ, not his death-- scholars generally
place Christ's death at about 32-34 A.D., viz., 32-34 years after his birth.
  	Otherwise, technically, you're right: a century, by definition, is a
100 year period.  The First century A.D. began 1/1/01 and ended 12/31/100,
not 12/31/99. The second century thus began 1/1/101, and would end 100 years
later-- on 12/31/200. And so on.  Yet today, for convenience or convention,
the 20th Century is uniformly viewed as having begun on 1/1/1900 -- by
12/31/1900 the first year of the 20th century had passed, so the 100th year
of the 20th century will end on 12/31/99.  Nonetheless, I don't think you
can assume the system is off by exactly one year. I don't know, but am
willing to bet, that a calendar year has not always been exactly 365.25 days
since 1 B.C.  Even assuming near perfection for the first 1475 years(
i.e.uniform 365 day years, but no leap year adjustments) and perfection
thereafter-- the system would be almost a full year "behind",  and thus
squaring up "true" century starts at the zero years ( ie the 16th century
would truely begin about 1/1/1500).  So current convention probably equals
rough justice.
	Yes I know this is just an academic exercise, so my response is not
a flame-- it is just an offer to correct one assumption and offer an
alternative view on another.  I just had some time to kill at lunch.  At a
minimum, the "A.D." point is worth noting. 

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