: It's specifically a US thing or it is specifically an, US thing. Khmer Rouge never attempted to implement a new beginning of numbers for years and neither did the French Revolutionists. It's a term dreamed up by the American owned Associated Press and it's world wide subsidiaries in order to foster complacency among The People that ois rationalized under the false notion that it is necessary to stabilize US Constitution. Distinguishing a before and after timeline does nothing to erase the past, quite contrary to the propaganda, Christ's birth is used to keep better track of all the futures that become the past. The Associated Press uses their  viewpoint that religion is the enemy to Peace and prefers that viewpoint as opposed to admitting the Truth, that it is the Male gender that is the major obstacle to Peaceful Civil Societies. The "year zero" is nothing short of the same male beliefs which assassinated Kennedy, dreamed up the term "normative constitution" after deciding a Constitution defines an unwritten document, and it's the same male beliefs that perpetuates hysteria against Muslims; which is responsible for the terrorist acts against Europe and US. It's a cover meant to incite fear within the mind of the masses so that We will overlook the actions Our government takes that are the root cause the zealots who have become so desperate and antagonized in their own land by the foreigner that they begin a fight they call Jihad.  

 :There is a major distinction between the Jihadees who fight for the sovereign freedom and liberty to practice their belief in God and their right to worship as they deem fit, and the male Jihadists who believe all who refuse conversion to Islam should be put to death 

 :The latter is distinguished from the former, yet the latter is exactly equal to the  male need for domination and subsequent foolishness that first penned the year zero propaganda. -