(October 1, 2012 at 11:41 am)Minimalist Wrote: I don't know about "world wide" ..... North Korea probably dates its years from Kim Il-sung's first erection... but it is pretty common.
As to why? Probably a legacy of European colonialism.
Got me thinking about it, so I looked it up.
"There are seven calendars in regular current use around the world. They are the Gregorian, the Chinese, the Hebrew, the Islamic, the Persian, the Ethiopian and the Balinese Pawukon."
Although the Gregoian is the international business Calendar, a lot of the world locally uses other Calendars. We are so ethnocentric in the west, we just assume everyone is using our Calendar.
http://calendopedia.com/modern.htm
