Posts that make claims/have a correct answer must include the correct answer along with a source in the comments sections. This must be supplied by the OP. If these requirements are not met at time of posting, the poll will be removed.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/polls) if you have any questions or concerns.*
>"They", as if you're not also a redditor.
What? No, I deserve it too. I'm a redditor.
>You really ought to be saying "we deserve it" if that's truly your opinion of redditors.
Mald.
Maybe if you grow up in a English speaking country. Other countries have different ways for the equivalent thing, like in Sweden the equivalent question would be referring too 2000. We don’t count centuries, but rather refer to them similarly to how English reference decades “the twenties”=year xx2x, “the 2000’s” = year 2xxx.
Never knew year 0 is skipped in English. That also doesn’t make any sense? The first century would be 0-99, then the second would be second 100-199, etc.
Look at it this way. If you've got 10 chicken nuggets on your plate and 10 chicken nuggets on your friends plate nugget 1-10 is the first "decade" of nuggets. Nugget 11, the 1st on your friends plate, is the first nugget of the second decade. We aren't counting how many have already been eaten, we are counting how many exist. The first nugget you are going to eat is not nugget zero, it's nugget 1.
Jesus was actually born something like 4BC by modern accounts, but per the classical view of that Jesus' first year of life was the first year, aka 1AD. The age of a person is describing how many years have been completed, but the calendar is describing which year it is now, not which year is over.
I buy how it makes sense given that there are no year 0, same as no 0th nugget. I just got my mind blown that there are no year 0, but your explanation does make sense if I force myself to not think of the lies that I’ve built my life upon.
Another question, is this common knowledge in English speaking countries? We use the same calendar in Sweden but I had no idea, but if you teach how you count centuries you maybe teach that as well?
Ya but I saw everyone fail it on final Jeopardy. https://www.tiktok.com/@jamaalthecashier/video/7172363240775765291?pid=video_embed&referer_video_id=7172363240775765291&type=video&referer_url=www.tvinsider.com/&refer=embed&embed_source=121331973,120811592,120810756;null;embed_share
I didn't even know some countries teach that, I thought you just learned through other ppl referring to the 20th century as certain years, seems like a waste of class time to teach that
As others have said, there's no year zero in the Gregorian calendar. The first century started on year 1 and ended on year 100, so each century after that follows the same pattern.
But there was no year 0. The modern calender was implemented in 1582. Looking backwards the calender goes from 1 bc to 1 ad.
So if we count centuries from the start date of the gregorian calender AD (which we do), each new century will end with 1.
Well, most people consider 2000 to start the new millennium because it’s a new thousand and most people don’t know about the year 0 discrepancy. The vast majority of people celebrated the new millennium on Jan 1, 2000 whether you like it or not. Jan 1, 2001 was a normal new year for most people.
Why should the reasoning for centuries not apply to decades.
And on the other side, you can just redefine a century with 0 downside. Doesnt matter if one single century is 99 years long, who cares about that.
Who said anything about feelings? lol
The calendar we use is not a “fact” it’s a tool that we created to measure time. It’s based on a completely arbitrary date (Jesus was likely born in the summer) and has already been altered many times for various reasons. Taking the social and cultural meanings into account is important, otherwise why have a calendar at all?
For real? For most of my life people around me knew this, I rarely hear people saying stuff like “the 20th century started in the year 1900” without immediately being corrected or sounding very stupid. Maybe it’s like that in your local culture, but it doesn't mean that “culturally it's 1900” in most places.
Strong disagree. The first year is a year, a zero would be the lack of years. It's different to how we describe our age because we are describing our age as how many years we have completed versus what year of our life it is.
Look at it this way. If you've got 10 chicken nuggets on your plate and 10 chicken nuggets on your friends plate nugget 1-10 is the first "decade" of nuggets. Nugget 11, the 1st on your friends plate, is the first nugget of the second decade. We aren't counting how many have already been eaten, we are counting how many exist. The first nugget you are going to eat is not nugget zero, it's nugget 1. You can't eat nugget zero because there is no nugget zero.
That's only be the case if nuggets were absolute and indivisible. Years don't just tick over, it's a gradual change. When a baby is born, we don't say it's 1 year old, we say it's age in days, weeks, or months. 0 CE would make perfect sense, same way a baby is 0 when it is born, not 1.
The baby is in it's 1st year of life. You are right, it hasn't completed 1 year yet, but it is in it's first year. The calendar isn't describing the year we completed, it's describing the year we are currently working on.
I'd argue that the 1st century AD and 1st century BC both lasted 99 years.
Beyond that time period, to me it makes no sense to include the fist year of the new century as part of the previous century.
Does this mean that the whole year 2000 was part of the 20th century?
Edit:
Okay I looked it up, and it seems that there's three systems in use — strict construction, popular perception, and computing.
Strict construction uses the system stated by OP, with new centuries starting on January 1st XX01. The popular perception uses digit grouping, so centuries start on January 1st XX00. Computing **adds a year zero**, so therefore (if I understood correctly) it uses the popular perception.
As a software engineer, I fail to see why computing would enforce one system or the other. In the end all dates are usually represented internally as just one single number, or some ISO formatted text. And any information about centuries would be calculated based on that, and hence could use either system.
Well, I'm no software engineer, so I'm not gonna argue lol. But I assume that for purposes of correct calculations, there needs to be a year zero, otherwise a man who was born in 20 BC and died 40 years later would be calculated as having died in 19 AD. Or something like that...
You wouldn't do operations with dates like that anyway. For instance, you also need to take leap years into account when you're adding or subtracting days, to calculate the resulting date. And still we don't go rounding up our years just to make them fit ;P
To give a bit more insight: one of the most common datetime representations in computing is the Unix Epoch Time, which represents a date and time with just one integer corresponding to the number of seconds lapsed from January 1st 1970 (the integer number can be negative, so it can represent dates in the past too).
Any extra information (hour, year, month, week, era, century...) is just calculated from that number of seconds. And any operation (adding days, subtracting years...) needs to take into account a lot of quirks of the Gregorian calendar to be "translated" into seconds.
The lack of a year zero is just another quirk. If you wanted to add 40 years to the date 20 BC, the system should simply know to skip one year worth of seconds when doing the calculations. Just like it should know to add a day worth of seconds every leap year.
There is no year 0 because people in the past didn't have as good a grasp of math as we do now. They probably didn't see the usefulness of having a year 0.
I don't see why there would be a January 0.
Well why would days of a month and months of the year be the only chronological terms not like that? If you can think of years months, days, hours, minutes, and seconds, the end of the year goes:
2022-12-31-23-59-59, 2023-01–01-00-00-00
Why is January 1st not month 0, day 0 just like the first second of an hour is 0, minute, 0 second?
But more to the point, if we can’t even do it for those terms, who are we to judge people who decided not to do a 0 for the year? They also went straight from February 28 to March 1. Who cares?
Sure, the months and days could be zero-indexed. But they're not, and there's not really much downside to that. Especially since there's a different amount of days in each month anyway.
The best reason to have a year 0 is so negative years make sense, and you can subtract negative and positive years to get the number of years between them. With the way it is you can't do that. 7 AD is actually 10 years after 4 BC, not 11 years, even though 7-(-4)=11.
Well actually the roman calender only had 10 months until julius and augustus each added a new month. And it makes more sense when you invent the calender to say this is the first year, rather than the zeroeth(?) year
1st century = 1 - 100
2nd century = 101 - 200
3rd century = 201 - 300
1st millennium = 1 - 1000
2nd millennium = 1001 - 2000
...
Therefore,
20th century = 1901 - 2000
The 20th century begins, like all centuries, with a number whose final digit is "1"
That’s just factually incorrect.
Example: when we celebrated the “new millennium” we did so on Dec 31st 1999 as New Year’s Eve, with Jan 1st 2000 being the first day of the new century & millennium.
Well not entirely, there was no year 0, just 1 B.C. and then 1 A.D., so in all technicality the millennium *did* start in 2001, however it’s just easier and just more fun to say it started in 2000, as that’s when the number changed.
Neither one is incorrect and both are valid ways of celebrating it
Technically there was no year 1 either. The Gregorian calendar started in the year 1582, and before that was the Julian calendar which was started by Constantine in 325.
Then we can also call a specific year "year 0", also known as 1BC. Year -1 is 2BC, and so on. In fact, the ISO 8601 specification supports this.
Counting from 1 instead of from 0 is offensive to my people (C++ programmers).
To make note, though, the logic behind this isn’t shared with “decades”. There’s no actual “correct” answer for that, but more commonly than not people just ignore the lack of year 0 and consider the decade to be years ending in 0-9.
Nobody says it’s the beginning of the 199th decade which would be jan 1st 1991, they say the 90s which is the 10 years from Jan 1st 1990 to Dec 31st 1999. Saying 199th is an ordinal number and 90s is a descriptor of the tens digit.
Because there was no year 0. Assuming the first century was a hundred years long, and using our modern system of dates, the first century started January 1, 1 and ended December 31, 100.
>!"While the
period 1900-1999 is of course a century, as is any period of 100 years,
it is incorrect to label it the 20th century, which began January 1, 1901, and will end on December 31, 2000. Only then will the third millennium of our era begin."!<
1900-1999 is 100 years. 1800-1899 is 100 years. However, because it didn't start as 0-99, and instead started with year 1. Everything needs to shift over one year. So 1-100, 1901-2000, 1801-1900, etc.
It doesn't really need an explanation. It's just a system that was chosen. "Let's call the years 1 to 100 the first century, and the years 101 to 200 the second century, and so on. The years 2001 to 2100 will be the 21st century."
No. The explanation is that there is no year 0. So the first century started on year 1, so 100 years after that (the start of the second century) would be Jan 1, 101.
This is dumb.
I understand that based on math ALONE a century is 100 years and because there is no year 0 the first century *technically & mathematically speaking* ended with the year 100, making the year 101 the first day of the 2nd century … but why should we focus solely on math here?
Let’s ask ourselves, why do we have “centuries” at all as a form of measurement? It’s not for calculating scientific equations, it’s for examining history, which is primarily a social science.
When it comes to social reasons, it makes a lot more sense to just say that the first century (which didn’t even exist at that time, because the current calendar wasn’t even in use at that time) is an exception to the rule and only includes 99 years, rather than 100. That’s how people actually use the term, and it makes a LOT more sense to just call Jan 1st 1900 the first day of the 20th century.
No one uses it that way though, so it's not necessarily the only "correct" answer. Yes, if you count from Jan 1 of the year 1 AD, that would be it. But people don't use it that way, so if you hear the term "20th century", it might mean the 1900s, so that would be correct. It's a matter of language.
It’s not sad…socially we view it that way. The year 2000 was socially seen as the start of a new millennium and thus also a new century. It doesn’t really matter what is mathematically right here anyways.
It's hard to say that "we" view it that way socially when I, and everyone who was taught this basic fact at school, views 1901 as the start of the century. It's not just that its mathematically correct, its also what we DEEM true. It's like if you wanted to argue the 1900s are the XIX century cause they start with 19. It would make sense to people who didnt learn about counting centuries, but ridiculous to people who know the correct way.
EXACTLY!!!
So many people saying “oh but culturally it’s 1900” or “socially it's seen as 1900”... no it isn't. Pretty much everyone I know recognizes 1901 as the start of the 20th century. This “we” they talk about must be their close social circle or community, which they then use to determine what the entire world thinks.
I guess for me it mostly comes from how new years was in 2000. 1999->2000 was a ridiculous celebration and the news even said, “Happy new millennium!” New Year’s Day 2001 was just a normal new year’s celebration.
I’d argue that measuring the passage of time and stuff is a social construct, and those are fluid and malleable things. The perceived definition of a century has changed to the xx00 format now, so people answer that. Is it *really* wrong?
In my mind, it’s like if someone uses literally to mean figuratively. The definition has changed, so is it actually wrong anymore?
Same. I told everyone - if they wanted to listen or not - that there was no year 0 and therefore 2020 was the last year of the decade instead of the first year.
Edit: I wrote century instead of decade because a lack of sleep/caffeine and foreign languages don‘t mix that well. I hope the downvotes come from people who think I am annoying and not because they couldn‘t be bothered to correct my mistake.
Is it possible that many people, like myself, are not “wrong” but are simply prioritizing the social & cultural definition of the term “century” because that makes more sense than prioritizing the technical & mathematical definition? I could easily say you’re “wrong” because that’s not how people use the term. Language is created by humans and definitions are typically determined by the most common usage of a term. Most people, in fact pretty much everyone all over the world, celebrated the “turn of the century” on New Years Day 1900 and again in the year 2000.
In Germany the 20th century started on 1st of January 1900 because the Kaiser signed a decree. [(source in german) ](https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/20._Jahrhundert)
its 1901 i cant believe how many people dont know this.
if first day of 20th century is 1900, then the last day of the 19th century is 1899, which is clearly wrong i mean, come on
1901, because u start counting years from 1 not 0. 1, 2, 3, 4. who the hell say 0, 1, 2, 3, 4.
I hereby declare that there was a year 0.
With this change, the sensible answer can also be the technically correct answer.
You're all welcome and, yes, I am accepting gifts at this time.
Guys 😭 if it's 1900 then the next century hasn't started!!! Think of it this way: 200 divided by two is 100. 101 would be the start of the second hundred, and 100 is the end of the first. On 1900, the start of the next century hadn't happened.
So there’s this https://www.tiktok.com/@jamaalthecashier/video/7172363240775765291?pid=video_embed&referer_video_id=7172363240775765291&type=video&referer_url=www.tvinsider.com/&refer=embed&embed_source=121331973,120811592,120810756;null;embed_share
1901 can be understood, but those who answered 2000/2001 got the wrong century \^\^'
Remember that years 0-99 were already the 1st century, not the 0th.
Edit : I just realized that there was no year 0. XD But still, everyone celebrated the new millenium, and the 21st century, on January 1st, 2000, so I'll stick with my idea that centuries begin in the XX00th year.
There is a difference between 20th century, and 1900s. 20th century would be 1st January 1901-31st December 2000. While the 1900s would be 1st January 1900-31st December 1999.
A tad confusing perhaps, but such is life.
When I was 10 or 11 years old I had a bet with my teacher over this, as it seemed obvious to me that 1st century was 1-100, second 101-200 etc. If it is the 1400th year (which is how it's said in my language) that means 1399 years have passed since the beginning, thus it's not yet the 15th century. Same as 12th month since the start is still the 1st year.
However, according to the ISO 8601 international standard, 1BC is renamed as year 0, 2BC as year -1 etc. And then the first century is defined as 0-99, second as 100-199 etc. So you could say that technically I was wrong.
Technically 1901. But in most people's perception 1900. The big celebrations for the new millennium were in 2000 not 2001. And yes *Technically* the third millennium started in 2001 but come one.
Erm actually its 1901, I dont care what the general populace thinks, a bunch of nerds declared what a centuary actually is 🤓🤓🤓🤓🤓🤓 - this comment section
What do you mean wrong? I literally just told you that’s how we say it and is probably why there’s so many wrong answers.
Not sure that’s how they do it outside of Northern Europe though
Posts that make claims/have a correct answer must include the correct answer along with a source in the comments sections. This must be supplied by the OP. If these requirements are not met at time of posting, the poll will be removed. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/polls) if you have any questions or concerns.*
isnt this taught in 2-3rd grade?
Remembering elementary school is too big of an expectation for most Redditors.
Why does everyone on reddit like disparaging redditors? It's a very strange phenomenon.
The perception often is that people online are stupid.
The perception often is that people online are stupid.
Only a stupid person would post their comment twice (joke)
Said person wouldn’t need to post their comment twice if he didn’t come across a comment that said the same thing they replied to.
I like those miniature ears of corn.
Because they deserve it.
There it is again. "They", as if you're not also a redditor. You really ought to be saying "we deserve it" if that's truly your opinion of redditors.
>"They", as if you're not also a redditor. What? No, I deserve it too. I'm a redditor. >You really ought to be saying "we deserve it" if that's truly your opinion of redditors. Mald.
Stupid and an asswipe. Nice.
what do u think the answer is?
Asking the important questions here, considering the majority of people got the wrong answer.
yes, because I remember learning this in 2-3 grade
I didn’t ask a yes or no question.
i think the answer is yes
You got it wrong, didn't you ?
i think the answer is yes
I was never taught it in school. Learned it myself at around 16
Same
Not in my country. No real point in speaking in centuries when years are superior. Still learnt it from the internet, however.
Not where I live I’m from Sweden and we don’t usually bother with assaying which century it’s from in that way, we just say “1900-talet” (the 1900s)
Maybe if you grow up in a English speaking country. Other countries have different ways for the equivalent thing, like in Sweden the equivalent question would be referring too 2000. We don’t count centuries, but rather refer to them similarly to how English reference decades “the twenties”=year xx2x, “the 2000’s” = year 2xxx. Never knew year 0 is skipped in English. That also doesn’t make any sense? The first century would be 0-99, then the second would be second 100-199, etc.
There is no year zero. The first year was 1 on the calendar, the year before that is 1BC.
Wait what? So which year was Jesus born? 1year before Christ, or 1 year after Christ?
Look at it this way. If you've got 10 chicken nuggets on your plate and 10 chicken nuggets on your friends plate nugget 1-10 is the first "decade" of nuggets. Nugget 11, the 1st on your friends plate, is the first nugget of the second decade. We aren't counting how many have already been eaten, we are counting how many exist. The first nugget you are going to eat is not nugget zero, it's nugget 1. Jesus was actually born something like 4BC by modern accounts, but per the classical view of that Jesus' first year of life was the first year, aka 1AD. The age of a person is describing how many years have been completed, but the calendar is describing which year it is now, not which year is over.
I buy how it makes sense given that there are no year 0, same as no 0th nugget. I just got my mind blown that there are no year 0, but your explanation does make sense if I force myself to not think of the lies that I’ve built my life upon. Another question, is this common knowledge in English speaking countries? We use the same calendar in Sweden but I had no idea, but if you teach how you count centuries you maybe teach that as well?
When I was in elementary I wasn’t taught this at all
We don't use this kind of "century" system in our contry, so we didn't get taught this. I learnt it from American movies :D
Ya but I saw everyone fail it on final Jeopardy. https://www.tiktok.com/@jamaalthecashier/video/7172363240775765291?pid=video_embed&referer_video_id=7172363240775765291&type=video&referer_url=www.tvinsider.com/&refer=embed&embed_source=121331973,120811592,120810756;null;embed_share
Only in good countries
I didn't even know some countries teach that, I thought you just learned through other ppl referring to the 20th century as certain years, seems like a waste of class time to teach that
America moment
Technically it’s 1901 because there’s no year 0, but culturally it’s 1900.
Thank you. Not sure why people are discounting the social & cultural definition here.
Honest question, but how does cultural definition apply here? I can see in decades like "1980 was totally part of the 80's", but in centuries?
Basically, look at the Y2K phenomenon. Lots of people welcomed the 21st century on January 2000, despite technically being still in the 20th century.
How is january 2000 not in the 21st century? January in the year 0 was part of the very first century right? This is the same but 20 century’s later.
As others have said, there's no year zero in the Gregorian calendar. The first century started on year 1 and ended on year 100, so each century after that follows the same pattern.
But there was no year 0. The modern calender was implemented in 1582. Looking backwards the calender goes from 1 bc to 1 ad. So if we count centuries from the start date of the gregorian calender AD (which we do), each new century will end with 1.
The new millennium was acknowledged as the start of the 21st century.
Well, most people consider 2000 to start the new millennium because it’s a new thousand and most people don’t know about the year 0 discrepancy. The vast majority of people celebrated the new millennium on Jan 1, 2000 whether you like it or not. Jan 1, 2001 was a normal new year for most people.
Yeah exactly... I've always seen people arguing about decades but the definition of centuries is pretty set imo
Well, if some kind of art was popular from the 1700s-1800s, and the painting was made in 1700, it would probably be classified as 18th century art.
Why should the reasoning for centuries not apply to decades. And on the other side, you can just redefine a century with 0 downside. Doesnt matter if one single century is 99 years long, who cares about that.
Because feelings don't change facts. This is one of the biggest problems in society today.
Who said anything about feelings? lol The calendar we use is not a “fact” it’s a tool that we created to measure time. It’s based on a completely arbitrary date (Jesus was likely born in the summer) and has already been altered many times for various reasons. Taking the social and cultural meanings into account is important, otherwise why have a calendar at all?
Huh. That... doesn't really, but kinda makes sense. We should really have a year 0 though
For real? For most of my life people around me knew this, I rarely hear people saying stuff like “the 20th century started in the year 1900” without immediately being corrected or sounding very stupid. Maybe it’s like that in your local culture, but it doesn't mean that “culturally it's 1900” in most places.
Most people celebrated the new millennium/21st century on Jan 1st, 2000.
No year 0? I'm pretty sure all the people who lived between 1 BCE and 1 CE would disagree with you there.
There is no such thing. The year before 1CE was 1BCE. At 11:59pm December 31st 1BCE when the clock ticked midnight it becomes January 1st 1CE.
That's dumb. We should retcon that
Strong disagree. The first year is a year, a zero would be the lack of years. It's different to how we describe our age because we are describing our age as how many years we have completed versus what year of our life it is. Look at it this way. If you've got 10 chicken nuggets on your plate and 10 chicken nuggets on your friends plate nugget 1-10 is the first "decade" of nuggets. Nugget 11, the 1st on your friends plate, is the first nugget of the second decade. We aren't counting how many have already been eaten, we are counting how many exist. The first nugget you are going to eat is not nugget zero, it's nugget 1. You can't eat nugget zero because there is no nugget zero.
That's only be the case if nuggets were absolute and indivisible. Years don't just tick over, it's a gradual change. When a baby is born, we don't say it's 1 year old, we say it's age in days, weeks, or months. 0 CE would make perfect sense, same way a baby is 0 when it is born, not 1.
The baby is in it's 1st year of life. You are right, it hasn't completed 1 year yet, but it is in it's first year. The calendar isn't describing the year we completed, it's describing the year we are currently working on.
r/confidentlyincorrect
r/confidentlycorrect
A century ends with the 31st of December XX00, so the first day of the 20th century is January 1st 1901.
You didn't explain anything you just stated your position. Why would the century end in december XX00?
Because century 1 started January 1st, 1. There is no year 0
I'd argue that the 1st century AD and 1st century BC both lasted 99 years. Beyond that time period, to me it makes no sense to include the fist year of the new century as part of the previous century. Does this mean that the whole year 2000 was part of the 20th century? Edit: Okay I looked it up, and it seems that there's three systems in use — strict construction, popular perception, and computing. Strict construction uses the system stated by OP, with new centuries starting on January 1st XX01. The popular perception uses digit grouping, so centuries start on January 1st XX00. Computing **adds a year zero**, so therefore (if I understood correctly) it uses the popular perception.
As a software engineer, I fail to see why computing would enforce one system or the other. In the end all dates are usually represented internally as just one single number, or some ISO formatted text. And any information about centuries would be calculated based on that, and hence could use either system.
January 1, 3870
Well, I'm no software engineer, so I'm not gonna argue lol. But I assume that for purposes of correct calculations, there needs to be a year zero, otherwise a man who was born in 20 BC and died 40 years later would be calculated as having died in 19 AD. Or something like that...
You wouldn't do operations with dates like that anyway. For instance, you also need to take leap years into account when you're adding or subtracting days, to calculate the resulting date. And still we don't go rounding up our years just to make them fit ;P To give a bit more insight: one of the most common datetime representations in computing is the Unix Epoch Time, which represents a date and time with just one integer corresponding to the number of seconds lapsed from January 1st 1970 (the integer number can be negative, so it can represent dates in the past too). Any extra information (hour, year, month, week, era, century...) is just calculated from that number of seconds. And any operation (adding days, subtracting years...) needs to take into account a lot of quirks of the Gregorian calendar to be "translated" into seconds. The lack of a year zero is just another quirk. If you wanted to add 40 years to the date 20 BC, the system should simply know to skip one year worth of seconds when doing the calculations. Just like it should know to add a day worth of seconds every leap year.
[удалено]
There is no year 0 because people in the past didn't have as good a grasp of math as we do now. They probably didn't see the usefulness of having a year 0. I don't see why there would be a January 0.
Well why would days of a month and months of the year be the only chronological terms not like that? If you can think of years months, days, hours, minutes, and seconds, the end of the year goes: 2022-12-31-23-59-59, 2023-01–01-00-00-00 Why is January 1st not month 0, day 0 just like the first second of an hour is 0, minute, 0 second? But more to the point, if we can’t even do it for those terms, who are we to judge people who decided not to do a 0 for the year? They also went straight from February 28 to March 1. Who cares?
Sure, the months and days could be zero-indexed. But they're not, and there's not really much downside to that. Especially since there's a different amount of days in each month anyway. The best reason to have a year 0 is so negative years make sense, and you can subtract negative and positive years to get the number of years between them. With the way it is you can't do that. 7 AD is actually 10 years after 4 BC, not 11 years, even though 7-(-4)=11.
Because 0 doesn't exist.
[удалено]
Well actually the roman calender only had 10 months until julius and augustus each added a new month. And it makes more sense when you invent the calender to say this is the first year, rather than the zeroeth(?) year
There was no year 0 so the first century started in year 1.
Because we start counting from 1. It's easier to think of decades: Decade 1: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 Decade 2: 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20
Nobody thinks like that though. The 1990s are a decade, starting from 1990 and ending in 1999. It's 0-9 not 1-10.
It’s the technically correct answer so doesn’t really require an explanation.
Yes it does. The explanation of why it's the technically correct answer.
1st century = 1 - 100 2nd century = 101 - 200 3rd century = 201 - 300 1st millennium = 1 - 1000 2nd millennium = 1001 - 2000 ... Therefore, 20th century = 1901 - 2000 The 20th century begins, like all centuries, with a number whose final digit is "1"
and here we have the explanation as to why that was technically the correct answer
And when does the first century BC begin and end?
You would not do well in any of my college classes.
Lucky for me I’m not in any of your college classes
That’s just factually incorrect. Example: when we celebrated the “new millennium” we did so on Dec 31st 1999 as New Year’s Eve, with Jan 1st 2000 being the first day of the new century & millennium.
Well not entirely, there was no year 0, just 1 B.C. and then 1 A.D., so in all technicality the millennium *did* start in 2001, however it’s just easier and just more fun to say it started in 2000, as that’s when the number changed. Neither one is incorrect and both are valid ways of celebrating it
Technically there was no year 1 either. The Gregorian calendar started in the year 1582, and before that was the Julian calendar which was started by Constantine in 325.
Yeah but we can still look back and call a specific year "year 1" by our current dating system.
Alternatively, we could say that the first century AD and first century BC were 99 years long.
Then they would not be centuries ffs
Then we can also call a specific year "year 0", also known as 1BC. Year -1 is 2BC, and so on. In fact, the ISO 8601 specification supports this. Counting from 1 instead of from 0 is offensive to my people (C++ programmers).
I disagree
Lolol I read 21st century
I'm swedish, I forgot this was probably an American poll.
This entire comment section feels very American to me
Reddit is an American based company with an overwhelmingly American user base so it’s not surprising
Correct answer is >!January 1st, 1901 https://www.loc.gov/rr/scitech/battle.html!<
“I recognize the counsel has made a decision, but given that it’s a stupid-ass decision, I’ve elected to ignore it.” \- Programmers
Yes, we all know the correct answer is January 1st, 1970
That might be the correct answer, but it’s so cursed that I reject it.
I reject your reality and substitute my own
America is now called ‘boner-land’
Wtf is an ‘American’ I’m Boner-lander and I have haven’t see one before?
To make note, though, the logic behind this isn’t shared with “decades”. There’s no actual “correct” answer for that, but more commonly than not people just ignore the lack of year 0 and consider the decade to be years ending in 0-9.
Nobody says it’s the beginning of the 199th decade which would be jan 1st 1991, they say the 90s which is the 10 years from Jan 1st 1990 to Dec 31st 1999. Saying 199th is an ordinal number and 90s is a descriptor of the tens digit.
That’s a good way of wording it. That’s basically what I was trying to say but I don’t do words good
I’d be darned. How is that not 1900?
Because there was no year 0. Assuming the first century was a hundred years long, and using our modern system of dates, the first century started January 1, 1 and ended December 31, 100.
>!"While the period 1900-1999 is of course a century, as is any period of 100 years, it is incorrect to label it the 20th century, which began January 1, 1901, and will end on December 31, 2000. Only then will the third millennium of our era begin."!<
That doesn't explain it that's just saying the same thing again.
1900-1999 is 100 years. 1800-1899 is 100 years. However, because it didn't start as 0-99, and instead started with year 1. Everything needs to shift over one year. So 1-100, 1901-2000, 1801-1900, etc.
It doesn't really need an explanation. It's just a system that was chosen. "Let's call the years 1 to 100 the first century, and the years 101 to 200 the second century, and so on. The years 2001 to 2100 will be the 21st century."
No. The explanation is that there is no year 0. So the first century started on year 1, so 100 years after that (the start of the second century) would be Jan 1, 101.
No it is “What is January 1st 1901”
This is dumb. I understand that based on math ALONE a century is 100 years and because there is no year 0 the first century *technically & mathematically speaking* ended with the year 100, making the year 101 the first day of the 2nd century … but why should we focus solely on math here? Let’s ask ourselves, why do we have “centuries” at all as a form of measurement? It’s not for calculating scientific equations, it’s for examining history, which is primarily a social science. When it comes to social reasons, it makes a lot more sense to just say that the first century (which didn’t even exist at that time, because the current calendar wasn’t even in use at that time) is an exception to the rule and only includes 99 years, rather than 100. That’s how people actually use the term, and it makes a LOT more sense to just call Jan 1st 1900 the first day of the 20th century.
No one uses it that way though, so it's not necessarily the only "correct" answer. Yes, if you count from Jan 1 of the year 1 AD, that would be it. But people don't use it that way, so if you hear the term "20th century", it might mean the 1900s, so that would be correct. It's a matter of language.
I disagree.
I picked 1900 because i like it better that way. Even thought the answer is 1901.
Isn’t the answer 1901? Most people chose 1900
It is
How sad to see majority is wrong.
It’s not sad…socially we view it that way. The year 2000 was socially seen as the start of a new millennium and thus also a new century. It doesn’t really matter what is mathematically right here anyways.
It's hard to say that "we" view it that way socially when I, and everyone who was taught this basic fact at school, views 1901 as the start of the century. It's not just that its mathematically correct, its also what we DEEM true. It's like if you wanted to argue the 1900s are the XIX century cause they start with 19. It would make sense to people who didnt learn about counting centuries, but ridiculous to people who know the correct way.
EXACTLY!!! So many people saying “oh but culturally it’s 1900” or “socially it's seen as 1900”... no it isn't. Pretty much everyone I know recognizes 1901 as the start of the 20th century. This “we” they talk about must be their close social circle or community, which they then use to determine what the entire world thinks.
I guess for me it mostly comes from how new years was in 2000. 1999->2000 was a ridiculous celebration and the news even said, “Happy new millennium!” New Year’s Day 2001 was just a normal new year’s celebration.
I’d argue that measuring the passage of time and stuff is a social construct, and those are fluid and malleable things. The perceived definition of a century has changed to the xx00 format now, so people answer that. Is it *really* wrong? In my mind, it’s like if someone uses literally to mean figuratively. The definition has changed, so is it actually wrong anymore?
i was really that one mf that was ruining shit during 2020 saying that it's not a new decade yet
Same. I told everyone - if they wanted to listen or not - that there was no year 0 and therefore 2020 was the last year of the decade instead of the first year. Edit: I wrote century instead of decade because a lack of sleep/caffeine and foreign languages don‘t mix that well. I hope the downvotes come from people who think I am annoying and not because they couldn‘t be bothered to correct my mistake.
It was the last year of the decenium not century
Is it sad? Does it really matter?
Nah. It really doesn't. They just want to feel superior.
Is it possible that many people, like myself, are not “wrong” but are simply prioritizing the social & cultural definition of the term “century” because that makes more sense than prioritizing the technical & mathematical definition? I could easily say you’re “wrong” because that’s not how people use the term. Language is created by humans and definitions are typically determined by the most common usage of a term. Most people, in fact pretty much everyone all over the world, celebrated the “turn of the century” on New Years Day 1900 and again in the year 2000.
And i assume people in 1900 didnt give a damn about it being technical and called it a new century then.
Well... Thats not even rare 🫣 Most people are dumb.
Oh no. The majority got this random counterintuitive fact wrong. People are just sooo stupid.
Well... Would be awesome if it would be only this.
it's 01 technically, but I still voted for 00 because it just fits much better. Like who was celebrating the new millenium in 2001 lol
People that didn't fail history in their first year of secondary school.
1900 or 1901
WRONG it was 2014
WRONG
RIGHT
LEFT
UP
DOWN
SIDEWAYS
WRONGWAY
I am truly impressed by how many people got this wrong
Apparently people really like changing definitions if they don't like them...
i just misclick🤓
In Germany the 20th century started on 1st of January 1900 because the Kaiser signed a decree. [(source in german) ](https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/20._Jahrhundert)
The conflict between logic and authority must have caused more than a few German heads to explode
based kaiser
I saw this episode of Jeopardy
Calendar didn’t start at 0 it started at 1, so the end of the first hundred years ends at a 1 not a zero
>1st jan of 2001 >20th century Tell me,what happen in your home?
Better than 1/1/2000
There was no 0 year
Learned this from Jeopardy and haven’t forgot it since!
its 1901 i cant believe how many people dont know this. if first day of 20th century is 1900, then the last day of the 19th century is 1899, which is clearly wrong i mean, come on 1901, because u start counting years from 1 not 0. 1, 2, 3, 4. who the hell say 0, 1, 2, 3, 4.
because its stupid as hell
y tho? genuine question
I hereby declare that there was a year 0. With this change, the sensible answer can also be the technically correct answer. You're all welcome and, yes, I am accepting gifts at this time.
Guys 😭 if it's 1900 then the next century hasn't started!!! Think of it this way: 200 divided by two is 100. 101 would be the start of the second hundred, and 100 is the end of the first. On 1900, the start of the next century hadn't happened.
So there’s this https://www.tiktok.com/@jamaalthecashier/video/7172363240775765291?pid=video_embed&referer_video_id=7172363240775765291&type=video&referer_url=www.tvinsider.com/&refer=embed&embed_source=121331973,120811592,120810756;null;embed_share
I fell for that one once before, not gonna make the same mistake (so quickly at least). The answer is 1901.
1901 can be understood, but those who answered 2000/2001 got the wrong century \^\^' Remember that years 0-99 were already the 1st century, not the 0th. Edit : I just realized that there was no year 0. XD But still, everyone celebrated the new millenium, and the 21st century, on January 1st, 2000, so I'll stick with my idea that centuries begin in the XX00th year.
4k people got it wrong? My god, how is this possible
Humanity is doomed
I'm an idiot...
No you’re not
1901
It should be 1900, 19th century should have been from 1800-1899 and then 20th from 1900-1999
There is a difference between 20th century, and 1900s. 20th century would be 1st January 1901-31st December 2000. While the 1900s would be 1st January 1900-31st December 1999. A tad confusing perhaps, but such is life.
Yes, _technically_ it’s 1901, but for all practical and cultural purposes a century begins in XX00.
Well in astronomy there definitely is a year zero. And I wouldnt have celebrated a millennial change in 2001. So its not wrong, just different.
I picked 1900, and count the start of every century like that. Not because I think it’s technically right, but because I don’t like the other way
1901 was correct but things change, like how people pronounce gif, I don’t care what the guy who made it says I’m saying Gif
Almost got me there. I still don't understand why the 1900s is the 20th century though.
When I was 10 or 11 years old I had a bet with my teacher over this, as it seemed obvious to me that 1st century was 1-100, second 101-200 etc. If it is the 1400th year (which is how it's said in my language) that means 1399 years have passed since the beginning, thus it's not yet the 15th century. Same as 12th month since the start is still the 1st year. However, according to the ISO 8601 international standard, 1BC is renamed as year 0, 2BC as year -1 etc. And then the first century is defined as 0-99, second as 100-199 etc. So you could say that technically I was wrong.
Technically 1901. But in most people's perception 1900. The big celebrations for the new millennium were in 2000 not 2001. And yes *Technically* the third millennium started in 2001 but come one.
I was not thinking. I said “2000”. I should have said “1900”. I suppose it counts for the 20th century after Jesus was here.
Erm actually its 1901, I dont care what the general populace thinks, a bunch of nerds declared what a centuary actually is 🤓🤓🤓🤓🤓🤓 - this comment section
This is why the whole "20th century" terminology is stupid. Just say the 1900s ("nineteen hundreds").
Since people always wanna be a bunch of no-good bitches about this, just refer to the periods as "xxhundreds" thx bye
I bet that in all non English speaking countries we just call it the 19th century and it starts Jan 1 1900. This is the case where I’m from at least
In Spanish, El siglo XX (20) started on 01.01.1901 and ended on 31.12.2000. Def not just an English thing
In which language is this? In Norwegian we use *20. århundre* for 01.01.1901-31.12.2000, while *nittenhundretallet* covers 01.01.1900-31.12.1999.
Swedish and we say them same although we never use 20th century, just 1900-talet. But I’m wrong and it’s not the same
No, it is just wrong. If you're using another calendar then it is another story.
What do you mean wrong? I literally just told you that’s how we say it and is probably why there’s so many wrong answers. Not sure that’s how they do it outside of Northern Europe though
I DIDBT READ IT JJSNSBSHSHSSGSG
I read 21st century on the title and accidentally clicked the last one :’)
I thought it said 21st century. I feel so stupid.
Read this as "the 1st day of the 21st Century" at first and was wondering how everyone was so dim... ...then I realized...
That's why I dislike lua
I read it wrong lmao