&gt; XVIII to XIX century<p>This is off topic, but what is up with the Roman numerals when referring to centuries?<p>I tried googling it but came up empty. I can&#x27;t find any authoritative source for this being a thing in any particular dialect of English and at least one person I&#x27;ve seen using this was a native Russian speaker. Google results only indicate that this is common in Spanish and maybe Polish.<p>Am I missing something? Is this a thing in American or British academia? Is it part of some popular newspaper&#x27;s house styles? As a non-native speaker I find this incredibly peculiar.