Understanding BCE and CE BCE stands for = Before Common Era CE stand for = Common Era People have been recording their history and keeping track of time for a long time. But a long time ago most advanced cultures had their own calendars. This meant that when they recorded events, even the same events, they didn’t do it in same way. What are some possible problems with this system?

The modern calendar is was an attempt to solve this problem. The Problem of Having too Many Calendars As different cultures began to interact with each other more frequently having different systems for marking time became very confusing. The modern calendar is was an attempt to solve this problem. When marking time you need to pick a starting point. In the modern calendar the starting point is the year 1, or about when Jesus was born. All time is marked relative to that event. Events that happened before birth of Jesus was written has how long BEFORE Jesus’s they happened. Events that happened after the birth of Jesus are written as how long AFTER Jesus’s birth they happened.

100 BCE 1 100 CE