Alex Rivera | Logout

Why are dates calculated from January 1st, 1970?

Asked 2010-03-28T16:18:46.203
120

Is there any reason behind using date(January 1st, 1970) as default standard for time manipulation? I have seen this standard in Java as well as in Python. These two languages I am aware of. Are there other popular languages which follows the same standard?

Please describe.

programming-languages
Edit
Report

1 Answer

70

It is the standard of Unix time.

Unix time, or POSIX time, is a system for describing points in time, defined as the number of seconds elapsed since midnight proleptic Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) of January 1, 1970, not counting leap seconds.

answered 2010-03-28T16:21:11.117

Your Answer