What Does 2023 Mean?
What a busy year 2023 has been! Croatia replaced its kuna with the euro, Prince Harry published Spare, Buzz Aldrin married Anca Faur, and the Doomsday Clock pushed closer to midnight than ever before.
It's the Gregorian calendar year 2023, but what does that really mean? Most people assume it's because of a Christian monk named Dionysus Exiguus, who developed the dating system we use today. He was trying to figure out when the events described in the Bible happened - for instance, when Herod died and when Easter should happen.
But that's not the only reason! The Gregorian calendar is the system that most countries use, but there are lots of other ways to track time and date. For example, it's the Japanese calendar year Reiwa 5, the Chinese zodiac year of the Water Rabbit (though for Vietnamese people it's actually a Year of the Cat), and Thailand uses their version of the Buddhist Era, which is 543 years ahead of the Gregorian calendar.
