Chronology in history refers to the arrangement of events in the order in which they occurred. It is the study of how time is organised and divided in relation to historical events.
The goal of chronology in history is to place events in their proper order, so that they can be studied and understood in their historical context.
There are several rules that have been developed over time to achieve this and they are outlined below. The terms and concepts outlined here can be used in your own historical writing to improve your academic vocabulary.
How time is ordered in history
The measurement of time is traditionally based around the birth of Jesus Christ.
For events that occurred before Jesus’ birth, type ‘BC’ (an abbreviation for ‘Before Christ’) after the number of the year.
For example: 48 BC.
For events that happened after Jesus’ birth, type ‘AD’ (an abbreviation for the Latin phrase anno domini, which means “Year of our Lord”) before the number of the year.
For example: AD 120.
For those who prefer a non-religious version, the following alternatives are placed after the number of the year:
BCE (Before Common Era) = BC
For example: 48 BC becomes 48 BCE
CE (Common Era) = AD
For example: AD 120 becomes 120 CE
Additional notes regarding dates:
If there isn’t a ‘BC’ or ‘AD’ next to a date, it is probably AD
Before the birth of Christ, the number of years counts down, but after that, the years count upwards
There is no year ‘0’: the year 1 BC is followed immediately by AD 1
‘BP’ after a number stands for ‘Before the Present’
‘Circa’ means ‘around about’ and is a small ‘c.’ before the year. For example: c. 50 BC
How time is divided
Since human history has occurred over tens of thousands of years, historians have had to develop a system to help them talk about large sections of time easily.
As a result, names are given to groups of years. The groups and their names are as follows:
Decade = 10 years
Century = 100 years
Millennium = 1000 years
Historical periods
To make sense of the past, it is divided into even larger blocks of time called ‘periods’.
Each of these ‘periods’ can be broken down further into smaller times called ‘ages’ and even into smaller times called ‘eras’.
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