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Why are dates calculated from January 1st, 1970?


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.


Solution

  • 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.