Century
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Oxymoron83
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Reverted edits by [[Special:Contributions/67.168.111.135|67.168.111.135]] ([[User talk:67.168.111.135|talk]]) to last version by 76.184.38.95
{{wiktionary|century}}
{{otheruses}}
{{redirect|Centennial}}
{{redirect|Centenary}}
A '''century''' (From the [[Latin]] ''cent'', one hundred) is [[one hundred]] consecutive [[year]]s.
Centuries are numbered [[Names of numbers in English#Ordinal_numbers|ordinally]] (e.g. "The [[7th century|Seventh Century AD]]").
==Start and End in the Gregorian Calendar==
According to the [[Gregorian calendar]], the [[1st century]] AD started on [[January 1]], [[1]] and ended on [[December 31]], [[100]]. The [[2nd century]] started at year [[101]], the [[3rd century|third]] at [[201]], etc. The ''n''-th century will start on the year ''100×n - 99''. A century will only include one year, the centennial year, that starts with the century's number (e.g. [[1900|'''19'''00]] is in the [[19th century]]).
===End of the 20th century===
It is commonly-held misconception that the [[20th century]] ended on December 31, [[1999]]. The 20th century actually ended on December 31, [[2000]], its centennial year.
===1st Century AD and BC===
There is no "zeroth century" in between the [[1st century BC]] and the 1st century AD. The first century BC includes the years [[100 BC]] to [[1 BC]]. Other centuries BC follow the same pattern.
==Dating Systems before the Century==
The oldest dating systems were based on the ''[[Regnal year|reigns of monarchs]]'', (e.g. the fifteenth year of King George). Similarly, other systems arose dating from the founding of a dynasty, city or religion. For example, [[Ab urbe condita]] counts the Year 1 as the founding of [[Rome]], ''[[Anno Domini]]'' as the first full year of Jesus Christ's life and the [[Islamic calendar]] counts in the year of the [[Hijra (Islam)|Hijra]]. The [[Gregorian calendar]] adopted ''Anno Domini'' as the basis for its numbering system.
==Centuries in Astronomical Year Numbering==
[[Astronomical year numbering]], used by [[astronomers]]) includes a year zero. Consequently, the first century in these calendars may designate the years 0 to 99 as the first century. and to regard 2000 as the first year of the twenty-first century, the year 0 corresponding then to Georgian year 1 BC.
==References==
"The Battle of the Centuries", Ruth Freitag, U.S. Government Printing Office. Available from the Superintendent of Documents, P.O. Box 371954, Pittsburgh, PA 15250- 7954. Cite stock no. 030-001-00153-9.
==See also==
* [[List of centuries]]
{{Time measurement and standards}}
[[Category:Centuries| ]]
[[Category:Units of time]]
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