When did man start using the "year" in dates?

Question

Let me explain... Did one ancient Roman say to another "Hey, what's today's date?" "Oh, it's August 12, in the year 8"???? I doubt it. I am an coin collector and I have always wondered WHEN we started using the year for coins, printed/written material and such? I guess it would be around when we started using calenders? Maybe not.

Answer 1

Not everyone started using the Calendar too. The one most people use was invented by Cesar. The Chinese have their own calendar, the Aztecs had their own, etc.

It's not really something that can be answered, it's akin to when did people decide to give meaning to words, and forming sentences, then paragraphs, then novels, etc.

Answer 2

Lots of answers to this, but I'll start with the one most relevant to you.

The calendar that most of us use today is the Gregorian, laid down by Pope Gregory in 1582 by a papal bull (edict, announcement).  It sets 1AD as the birth of Christ. There is no zero year.

Gregorian was an updated version of the Julian calendar which was begun in 46BC by Julius Caesar.  I'm not sure if Caesar dated his coins, but he did get in assasinated in part because he put his face on a coin and that was considered bad luck as he wasn't dead yet.  People thought it meant he wanted to be king, so et tu brute.  Anyhow, some form of Julian has been used widely in the West since then.

But, ancients might refer to the year as the "fourth year of the reign of. . . " as noted in the Bible.  That happened a lot throughout the world and history.

Mayans and the Jewish had their own calendar dating from their creation story.

The Muslim Calendar dates to 622BCE when Muhammad reenters Mecca.

Answer 3

i think it was Galileo

Answer 4

History of time goes back 20,000 years.

Obviously, time is marked by daylight.

This link will tell you when it originated.

http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~hist...

Answer 5

I think Chinese did, but I am not sure when.