When midnight ushered in January 1, 2001, Christian countries, and many others that have adopted the Christian calendar, celebrated the beginning of a new century and a new millennium. But in large areas of the world, that day had no significance.
In Jerusalem it was Tevet 6 in the year 5761. In Buddhist Colombo, in Sri Lanka, the year was 2545. In Delhi the Hindu calendar showed the date of 6 Paush in the year 1922. In Mecca the date by the Muslim calendar was 5 Shawl in the year 1421. And to the world's astronomers, who do not mind using large numbers to escape the confusion of dating systems, January 1, 2001 (Greenwich time), was Julian 2,451,910.
How did these diverse starting points for the world's calendars first arise?
The Christian Calendar
In the sixth century C.E. a monk, Dionysius Exiguus, reputedly abbot of Rome, is said to have proposed that Christians should count years from the birth of Christ. From various sources he had calculated that Christ was born in the 28th year of the reign of the Roman emperor Augustus, and it is still regarded as close to the true date.
But Exiguus made a mistake in working out just which year this was: C.E. 1 should have been the year he called 4 B.C.E.. Since we perpetuate the error to this day, the new millennium should have actually occurred in 1997.
The Jewish Calendar
During the reign of King Solomon in the 10th century B.C.E., Jewish scholars calculated the date of the Creation and started counting the years from then. So, by that reckoning, in the year 2001 the world celebrated its 5,761st birthday.
Buddhist Calendar
The starting point for Buddhist calendars is the year of Buddha's death, which is generally believed to have occurred in 544 B.C.E..
The Hindu Calendar
Various Hindu calendars that were in use until 1957, each with a different starting point, created considerable confusion throughout the Hindu world. The Indian government then decided to rationalize the system by adopting the Official Hindu Calendar, using a starting point of C.E. 78. This is reputedly the first year of th reign of Kaniska, a semilegendary king who ruled over much of what is today modern India.
The Muslim Calendar
Muslims date their calendar from the Hegira-- the flight of the prophet Muhammad from Mecca to the city of Medina, which took place on Friday, July 16, C.E. 622. Muslim years follow the movements of the moon, not the sun, and are therefore 10 or 11 days shorter than the years of the Christian calendar. So the 1,379 years in the Christian calendar from the Hegira to the end of this century corresponded to 1,421 Muslim years.
The Julian Date
In the 16th century, Joseph Justus Scaliger, a scholar and physician, suggested that astronomers should use a cycle of 7,980 years. This length of time can be divided into 15, 19, and 28-year periods that are often used in calculations of the intricate movements of the sun and moon. Scaliger took the start of one such cycle to be January 1, 4713 C.E. when the celestial bodies were conveniently placed. It is believed that he called this date "Julian" in order to commemorate his own father, Julius Caesar Scaliger.
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