The established calendar dating system is based on the calculations of [[Dionysius Exiguus]] for the birthyear of [[Jesus]] relative to the foundation of Rome<ref>[http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEhelp/calendars.html Index to Calendars, NASA site]. The story is actually more complex, because pagan and murderer Emperor Diocletian had replaced the system that date events from the Foundation of Rome by a system based on himself, but the conversion between the then-called "A.D." (Anno Diocletian) and the foundation of Rome (Anno Urbis Conditae) was just a matter of adding an integer</ref>, and no one disputes that. But this birth did not begin a "common" era, or any immediate change in history. The 1997 [[Merriam-Webster]]'s Collegiate Dictionary gives a date of 1889 for the origin of the term "Common Era," but there is no indication of who began using it then, and why. Some claim it is a substitute for an occasional reference to the "Vulgar Era," with "vulgar" being Latin for "common" but acquiring a derogatory English meaning over time. | The established calendar dating system is based on the calculations of [[Dionysius Exiguus]] for the birthyear of [[Jesus]] relative to the foundation of Rome<ref>[http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEhelp/calendars.html Index to Calendars, NASA site]. The story is actually more complex, because pagan and murderer Emperor Diocletian had replaced the system that date events from the Foundation of Rome by a system based on himself, but the conversion between the then-called "A.D." (Anno Diocletian) and the foundation of Rome (Anno Urbis Conditae) was just a matter of adding an integer</ref>, and no one disputes that. But this birth did not begin a "common" era, or any immediate change in history. The 1997 [[Merriam-Webster]]'s Collegiate Dictionary gives a date of 1889 for the origin of the term "Common Era," but there is no indication of who began using it then, and why. Some claim it is a substitute for an occasional reference to the "Vulgar Era," with "vulgar" being Latin for "common" but acquiring a derogatory English meaning over time. |