Did people who lived in the 19th Century think the 20th Century began in 1900 or 1901?

Answer 1

I'll bet there was confusion back then too.

However, there's one answer to this question. The 20th century began in 1901, not 1900.

If you disagree, just do the math:

- How long is a century?

- What year did the first century begin?

- What year do you get if you add 100 years to the year the 1st century began to get to the beginning of the 2nd century.

- Repeat until present day

Answer 2

1900. I wonder where the 1901 analogy came from. We celebrated the new millennium on Jan.1st 2000, not 2001. The 1st day of the new century of the new millennium not the first day of the 2nd year of the century in the millennium. Of course this is all debatable because our calender is based on Christianity. The legal way of stating the date, at least in the U.S., is to write or say " in the year of our Lord, followed by the month, day and century. The date is noted with A.D. referring to "after death" as in after Christ died. Just as in the calender counts backwards in the years before Christ (B.C.) So you could say that the last day of the year 1999 we are finishing the 20th century and after 2000 years on Jan. 1st 2000, we are starting the 21st century.