There is no year zero because Dionysius Exiguus, inventing AD dating in 525, had no zero.
Just 103 years later the Indian Brahmagupta wrote down rules for adding and multiplying with zero.
The events
- Dionysius Exiguus invents Anno Domini525 · Rome. In 525 the Roman monk Dionysius Exiguus, computing Easter dates, began counting years 'since the Incarnation' instead of from Emperor Diocletian. Europe had no zero then, which is why 1 BC is followed directly by AD 1.
- Brahmagupta and the rules of zero628 · Bhinmal, India. The Indian mathematician Brahmagupta, in his Brahmasphutasiddhanta, first set out rules for calculating with zero and negative numbers. The Indian decimal place-value system with zero passed through the Arabs to Europe and underpins modern arithmetic.
More amazing facts
- 525 · 731 For five centuries nobody knew they were living in AD anything.
- 532 Emperor Justinian was nearly overthrown by sports fans.
- 532 · 537 Constantinople owes Hagia Sophia to rioting sports fans.
- 532 During the Nika riots it was his wife who stopped Justinian from fleeing.
- 536 · 541 536 is called one of the worst years to be alive: volcanic haze dimmed the sun across the Northern Hemisphere, and five years later the Plague of Justinian began.
- 537 Hagia Sophia remained the world's largest church for more than 500 years: consecrated in 537, it was surpassed only when the abbey church of Cluny in France was completed in the 12th century.