AD, BC, BCE

     The letters AD after a year stand for "Anno Domini"--Latin for "the year of our lord". In this old style of naming the years, we now live in AD 2011. The letters "CE" have recently been substituted for this. "CE" means in the "common era"--the set of years we are living in right now. This is important because there are more than 2,011 years of human history to read about. When discussing something that happened more than 2,011 years ago, the letters "BC" were once used. They stand for "before Christ". The letters "BCE" have recently been substituted for this--they stand for "before the common era".  Something that happened 2,012 years ago is said to have happened in the year 1 BCE--one year before the common era. Something that happened 2,511 years ago is said to have happened in the year 500 BCE. You can see by this that the numbers of the years before the common era, or BCE, seem to go backward. When discussing events that happened before the year "1", we are talking about how many years distant from the year "1" they are. So the larger the number of the BCE year, the longer ago it was.