Before Common Era

Before Common Era, or BCE, refers to the time in history before the year 1 on the current calendar. You know how the calendar tells you what year it is, like how it's 2021 now? Well, before the calendar started counting at 1, people still had history and things happened, but they didn't use the same calendar we do now. Instead, they had their own ways of keeping track of time.

BCE is a way to talk about those years before 1 that are still important to remember. Sometimes people will also use the abbreviation BC (Before Christ) to mean the same thing. Basically, when you hear or read about something happening "before common era" or "before Christ," it means it happened a really long time ago, like thousands of years ago, before the calendar we use now was created.