History & CultureHow it works
How our year count began, and why there's no year 0.
In 525, the monk Dionysius Exiguus in Rome wanted to calculate Easter tables and counted years from his estimate of Christ's birth instead of from Emperor Diocletian. The scholar Bede popularised the count from 731. There was no year zero: 1 BC is followed directly by AD 1. Strictly speaking, that's why the 21st century began in 2001, not 2000.
Useful: When you calculate spans across the era boundary, subtract a year: 5 BC to AD 5 is 9 years.
Source: en.wikipedia.org