About this episode
What Year Is It Again? The Curious Case of Year 1 AD
If you hopped in a time machine and asked a Roman what year it was in "Year 1 AD," they’d have no idea what you’re talking about. The concept of counting years from Christ's birth didn’t exist for centuries! In today’s episode of Smartest Year Ever, we uncover the quirky history of how Year 1 AD became a thing, why it took over 500 years to catch on, and how a monk’s questionable math still shapes the way we measure time today. Along the way, we’ll explore ancient world populations, historic cities, and the unlikely rise of the timeline we now take for granted.
Sources:
Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Dionysius Exiguus and the Origins of Anno Domini”
History.com, “The History of the Gregorian Calendar”
UN Population Division, “World Population Estimates Through History”
Smithsonian Magazine, “The World in Year One: Population and Culture”
National Geographic, “The Rise of Urban Centers in Ancient History”
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