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AD and BC are both ways of describing historical time. AD stands for "Anno Domini" which is Latin for "year of our Lord," It refers to years 1-present. BC stands for "Before Christ" and refers to dates before the year zero (the BC time line runs backwards, so 575 BC is older than 5 BC).
People who want to use the most widespread (Gregorian) calendar but without religious reference use BCE and CE instead of BC and AD. BCE=Before the Common Era, and CE=Common Era.
Mostly correct, However, there was no year zero. If we knew the exact year Jesus was born (which we don't) the year before AD1 would be 1 BC.
Starts with year one. We're in the year 2011 AD, or CE. Everything counts backwards from before that.
BC= before christ, AD= after death of christ
Before and after the death of Christ.
