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1. Howmanyyearsmakeacentury?
2. Inwhichcenturyarewenow?
3. Some important years in the history of Mauritius, which you will later learn, are listed below.
 Whichcenturiesdotheyindicate?
Study the timeline given above and answer the questions that follow.
discovery of
mauritius &rodrigues
Topic 2 understanding centuries
Do you know how many years there are in a century? Observe figure 1 above.
Theperiodbeginningfromyear1toyear100istherstsetof100years.Itiscalledtherst
century.
Likewise, the year 101 to year 200 is the second set of 100 years and is called the 2nd century.
The year 201 to 300 is the 3rd century, the year 1401 to 1500 is the 15th century and so on.
Can you notice that the years are different from the centuries?
Nowlet’ssaythattherstPortugueseexplorerarrivedintheIndianOceanintheyear1497.
Can you say which century it was?
fig. 1
Year
1598
1710
1810
1968
2002
Century
1st
century
2nd
century
3rd
century
4th
century
5th
century
14th
century
15th
century
16th
century
17th
century
18th
century
19th
century
20th
century
21st
century
100 101
1
200
300
400
500
1300
1400
1500
1600
1700
1800
1900
2000
2100
201
1301
2.0
ACTIVITY 2.0
timeline showing centuries