Year zero
Historians have never included a year zero. This means that between, for example, and , there are 999 years: 500 years BC, and 499 years AD preceding 500. In common usage "anno Domini" 1 is preceded by the year 1 BC, without an intervening year zero. Neither the choice of calendar system (whether Julian or Gregorian) nor the era ("Anno Domini" or Common Era) determines whether a year zero will be used. If writers do not use the convention of their group (historians or astronomers), they must explicitly state whether they include a year 0 in their count of years, otherwise their historical dates will be misunderstood.
0
The rules governing the use of zero appeared for the first time in Brahmagupta's "Brahmasputha Siddhanta" (7th century). This work considers not only zero, but also negative numbers and the algebraic rules for the elementary operations of arithmetic with such numbers. In some instances, his rules differ from the modern standard, specifically the definition of the value of zero divided by zero as zero.