Why do historians these days prefer to use the terms BCE/CE rather than BC/AD?
Two reasons:‘BC’ is a kind of after-the-fact hack. ‘AD’ stands for Anno Domini — translated “In the year of our Lord” — and was used throughout most of Christian history to mark dates. However, people did not have much use for talking about dates prior to the birth of Christ, at least not until the advent (pun intended) of the analytical study of history in the 19th century: archaeology, paleontology, anthropological study of texts, etc. British scientific explorers charging around the world needed some means of discussing dates prior to the Christian era, and settled on ‘Before Christ’ (BC). It’s irregular, and ultimately unsatisfying.Somewhere in the mid-to-late 20th century the academic community realized — go figure — that large numbers of academics were not Christians, and having a dating system ostensibly based on the birth of Christ was a bit insensitive. I mean, why not a system based on the birth of Muhammed or Buddha or Krishna? So they changed the denotation to CE and BCE — ‘Common Era’ and ‘Before Common Era’ — which kept the age-old Christian dating system as it was, but removed the overtly Christian implications.The ‘Common Era’ notation is mostly used in academic writing, though to be strictly fair few people outside of academia ever talk on time scales large enough that it is necessary or useful to use the specifiers at all. Who would ever say (for instance) “I need to renew my driver’s license in AD 2020 ”? It doesn’t make much difference to anything beyond avoiding annoying non-Christians, so best just to use it.
Historians use the term "detente"?
I actually just read about this. Detente was President Nixon's plan for better relations with the soviet union and china. It was the cooling period between the U.S. and the communist powers (USSR and PRC China) in the Cold War. Ways that Nixon expressed detente was being the first president to visit china, even had a ping pong tournament between the US and China to express hopes of peace and friendship. Detente was expressed with the Soviet Union by the US recognizing their Eastern European borders and selling grain to them, also helping US farmers by opening a new market for them, also helping the economy. But when Nixon resigned and Gerald Ford became president, (same with future presidents), Detente died because of the lack of interest to improve relations with Soviets and PRC China. It was even worse with Regan because he re-ignited the Cold War and soured relations with the Soviets yet again. Hopefully that answers your question a lil.
Why do historians call the Medieval Ages the "Dark Ages"?
The 'Dark Ages' refers to the period after the fall of the roman empire, when there was very little writing down of events going on, so we don't know a lot about what was happening. That is, they were 'dark' in the sense that we are in the dark about what was happening then. In Britain, it was the time when the Saxons invaded in large numbers, and when the legendary King Arthur is said to have ruled. Times eventually became more settled, the pagan Saxons were converted to Christianity, andlearning began to flourish again. A fascinating book from this period is 'Ecclesiastical History of th eEnglish people' by the Venerable Bede, which is an exciting chronicle of english histroy. 6th century England was evidently a very exciting place, full of kings and queens and saints and miracles. I don't think most historians refer to the entire middle ages as 'the dark ages' at least not the ones who know what they are talking about. Arts and learning flourished during the middle ages, and we still see the legacy of the period in Europe today, all the fabulous cathedrals and churches they built, the wonderful works of ar they created, the music tghey composed (still being sung today) and memorable works of literature like Dante's Inferno, Boccacio's Decameron, and Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. Nor were they ignorant of the classics, science, or medicine, all these things were studied So 'Dark Ages' only refers to a fairly short period, as compared to the rest of the medieval era.