so I was thinking about a American dating system inspired by the roman dating system with some influence from the japanese era system, using presidents.

So like we landed on the moon on July 20th, on the 1st year of Nixon, and Star Wars came out May 25th, on the 1st of Carter.

but besides the obvious problem of having to call this year the 4th of Trump, the big problem is 1893-1897.

Because of the #1 bane of american presidential history: FUCKING GROVER CLEVELAND

1885: 1st of Cleveland
1888: 4th of Cleveland
1889: 1st of Harrison
1892: 4th of Harrison
1893: 1st of Cleveland? 5th of Cleveland?

calling it first is going to make it ambiguous, and calling it 5th is also confusing because it means you have to know he had two terms that weren't continuous, so his 5th year isn't 1889, which is when you'd expect it

but I guess you gotta know when presidents were inaugurated anyway to know what these years mean, so that's just a minor gotcha.

and you could always call it 1st of Cleveland (second), which is something you're gonna have to worry about anyway, because of presidents Roosevelt and Bush who have shown up more than once.

I'm choosing here to call the whole year after the president who was inaugurated during that years, which should work because you know what that president will be for the period before they get inaugurated.

So like we'd be calling it the 1st of Obama on January 1st, 2009, even though Bush (W) was still president on that date.

this makes sense to some degree but can lead to some very weird years.

so for the first 4 months of 1841 we'd be calling it the 1st of Harrison, because William Henry Harrison was inaugurated on March 4th.
But then he dies, and John Tyler takes office immediately.
So for most of the year, it was John Tyler.

so do we call it the 1st of Harrison or the 1st of Tyler? Both, depending on the date?

I think a reasonable thing to do, to limit Confusing Years, is to let years stay the same name, even if that president is no longer the president.
So 1841 is always the 1st of Harrison.

But then we have to decide if 1842 is going to be the 2nd of Tyler (because he'd already been president for 8 months!) or the 1st (because it's the first year named after him).

it's one of those things where it causes possible confusion either way.

Either you have to know that the 1st of Tyler takes place in his second year, or you have to know that Tyler never had a 1st, and started with 2nd.

And it hasn't happened yet but there's always the possibility that we could have someone win an election then die before they get inaugurated.
So we'd be calling the year The First of LastName but then they never take office, and someone else does.

although that's an interesting constitutional question... what would happen in this case?
You'd think it'd just be their vice president that'd be inaugurated, but does the constitution actually say that?

because I think for the vice president to take over, the president would have to be the president, which they can't be until they're inaugurated.

the non-silly answer probably has something to do with the electoral college and such, like how they could still vote for a dead candidate as a stand-in for their replacement.
basically it'd just happen that the vice would get inaugurated as president, and it'd be fine

although there'd probably be a lot of "IS THEIR PRESIDENCY REALLY LEGITIMATE?" handwringing and conspiracy theories and lawsuits

but the much sillier and more fun answer is:
inaugurate the dead candidate and then let the vice president immediately take over

two questions about that though:
1. So the vice president takes over if the president dies, but in this case he wouldn't actually DIE while in office. he was already dead, before taking office.
dead is a state, dying is an event. the event already happened.

you could get around that one easily because there's a rule about the vice president taking over temporarily if the president is incapacitated, most recently used when George W. Bush had a colonoscopy.

2. does the constitution require that a presidential candidate be alive?

you gotta be:
1. a "natural born citizen" (fun fact: no one knows what this means)
2. at least 35 years old
3. a resident of the US for at least 14 years

citizenship doesn't go away when you die so presumably #1 is still true.
#2 is iffy but probably. You're certainly not younger than 35.
#3 doesn't change when you die

I've always wondered about the linguistic and philosophical arguments for age after death.
So like, you can say that someone "is 35", because they are alive and were born 35 years ago, right?
but if they then die, they "were 35". That state is now past-tense.

which is fine.
but ok, what about a year later?
their age is referred to as STILL that they "were 35", even though a year more has passed. OK, so your age doesn't change after you die? I guess so.

so does this mean that Steve Jobs (born 1955, died 2011) and Abraham Lincoln (born 1809, died 1865) are both the same age?

They both are/were 56?

it seems intuitive that Abraham Lincoln would be older than Steve Jobs, given that Lincoln was born a century and a half earlier, but by the logic of dead-ages they're the same.

They're also the same age as King Henry the Second of England, died 1189.

which brings up another question about this american-centric dating system.
How do we deal with dates before 1789, when Washington became the first (ARGUABLE) president?

you could steal from the BC/AD system and use B.A. for Before America but 1789 is a weird date for Before America.
You'd think that'd be 1776.
But now we have the 1776-1789 era that's confusing

if we grab presidents of the continental congress we can go a bit earlier, but they're confusing as all hell.
They've got discontinuous terms with no term limits and some really short terms.

so like Peyton Randolph started in September of 1774 and ran until... October 1774.
He was president for 47 days.

He was replaced by Henry Middleton, who was president from October 22nd to October 26th, 1774.
Yes, FOUR DAYS

he was then replaced with... Peyton Randolph again!
in...May, of 1775.
So there was no president of the continental congress for October to May.

Which makes sense because it was a temporary convention sort of thing: there was no congress from October to May, so there was no reason to have a president of it.

fortunately it was in session every year from 1774 to 1789 so we do have presidents we can use for each of those years.
unfortunately, some of them repeat, but that's just the Cleveland problem over again.

So now we can have dates going back to 1774, but clearly we might want to talk about shit earlier than that.
Like, when did the Pilgrims land at Jamestown?
168 Before America? (or 169 Before America, depending on if you think there should be a year zero in this system)

You could borrow the British (and English) monarchs, which takes it back a lot farther.
So the Jamestown was founded in the 5th of, well... it should be obvious.
It's the 5th of James (the first)

That does run into the minor problem of the Commonwealth of England. There was no monarch from 1649 to 1660.
From 1653-1659 you could say it was Cromwell (Oliver) or Cromwell (Richard) but that still leaves 1649-1652 as Nameless Years.

anyway, going to the British/English monarchs also runs into a problem of "what about before?" only it's even more confusing there. You can't really switch to a Before England system, either.

It's relatively easy to pick a given date and decide it's when America started and therefore everything before it can be Before America, but when do you decide is Before England?

before Æthelstan, who is often called the first ruler of all england?
That gets you back to 927 (or maybe 924).
Maybe Alfred the Great, king of Wessex? (~886)