Good question, Paul;- BC Dates actually began in Britain during the Druidic period. They wanted a way to tell time and dates so they built this big thing with lintels and rocks and peepholes. They had to have a starting date so one Memlic the Unbearable said, "I have had a vision in which the spirits have told me that it is now 2345 BC. The way to tell the date is to subtract a year every time the sun shows through this peep- hole and onto the mark I have just made on that there rock." So that's what they did, knowing full well that when they ran out of years, they would have a real electronic nightmare and they wouldn't have to pay their phone bills. Art