In the sixth century A.D. a theologian, 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: AD 1 should have been the year he called 4 BC. Since we perpetuate the error to this day, the new millennium should have in actuality occurred in 1996.

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