“BCE - Gee, let me think what could have possibly happened to go from BCE to CE...what single earth shattering event could have happened? My mind is blank...can’t figure it out..”
I’ve been trying to figure out whether this mechanism distinguished between BCE and CE when it told you what the date was.
Being that there was never a year zero, but only a zero point on the timeline, This Guy has wondered, was Christ born on December 25 (the seventh day prior to the zero point) or twelve months later?
The prior being what would logically be referred to as 1 B.C., and the latter, 1 A.D.
Once again: There is/was no year zero.
The timeline, if drawn out, would have the two noted years butting up against each other on opposite sides of the zero point.
(This also means that the year 2000 was not only the last year of the twentieth century, but also the last year of the second millennium. Sorry, Prince of 1999 fame!)