Question

Was any time lost in transition from BC to AD?

Answer 1

My claim to fame? responsibility for the first mistake made by an earthling on an extraterrestrial body.

As a White House speech writer, I had a hand in writing the text on the plaque marking the spot where Apollo 11 astronauts first set foot on the moon. To slip in an unobtrusive reference to God, I wrote, ''July 1969 A.D.'' When some alien from a U.F.O. lands there in a few thousand years, it will surely know that the initials stand for the Latin Anno Domini and get the point that our first explorers feared only God.

My mistake was putting the A.D. after the date. Correct dating usage is to put B.C., ''before Christ,'' after the year and A.D., ''in the year of our Lord,'' before the year.