🔢 What are Roman Numerals?

Roman numerals are a number system invented by the Romans. Instead of 1, 2, 3… they used special letters like I, V, and X! Let’s see how they count from 1 to 100:

🧮 How do Roman numerals work?

Roman numerals are formed by combining these letters in certain ways:

• To add, you put the smaller number after the larger: VI = 5 + 1 = 6
• To subtract, you put the smaller number before the larger: IV = 5 - 1 = 4

🏛️ Where Do We Still See Roman Numerals Today?

Even though we don’t use Roman numerals in everyday math, we still see them in many cool places!

• 🕰️ Clock faces – Numbers like IV, IX, and XII appear on Roman-style clocks.

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• 📚 Book chapter numbers – Chapters in books often use Roman numerals (e.g., Chapter IX).

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• 🎬 Movie titles – Like Rocky II or Super Bowl XLVIII!

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• 📜 Ancient inscriptions – Buildings, statues, and coins from ancient Rome often used Roman numerals for dates.
• 🏫 School emblems and diplomas – Many schools use Roman numerals to show founding years (e.g., MDCCLXXVI for 1776).

Roman numerals are like a secret code from history—still hiding in plain sight today!

📊 How Did Numbers Evolve?

Let’s explore how different cultures across history wrote numbers—and how we got the system we use today!

• 🌿 Tally Marks – The earliest counting system used by prehistoric people (~30,000 BCE).
• 🏺 Egyptian Hieroglyphs – Used around 3000 BCE for trade, taxes, and construction.
• 🔺 Babylonian Cuneiform – From Mesopotamia (~2000 BCE), used base-60 system for astronomy and recordkeeping.
• 🐉 Chinese Rod Numerals – Used in ancient China (~1000 BCE) for calculations on counting boards.
• 🏛️ Roman Numerals – Popular in ancient Rome (~500 BCE), used letters like I, V, X to count.
• 🕉️ Indian (Brahmi) – Appeared in India (~300 BCE), first to include zero and place value.
• ✍️ Arabic Numerals – From the Islamic Golden Age (~700 CE), spread the Indian number system with stylized digits.
• 🌐 Modern Decimal – The numbers 0–9 we use today, standardized worldwide by ~1500 CE.