Origin of magic

[Ankari]

Hello!
I have the following problem:
In my setting, magic has been around forever, it is one of the elemental forces of nature, but people didn't really knew how to properly use it until a certain event occurred 2385 years ago that enlightened people on it's use. This event is also the year 0 in the standard calendar. What event could have made this happen?

I was thinking maybe the discovery of some ancient scripts from a long lost civilization, but that's a bit of a cliché

I don't understand. If its an elemental force of nature, then it's something your people are long familiar with. Like the sun. The concept of harnessing the full power of the sun would appear magical and it's one of the "forces of nature." That isn't really an event that would go down as the event to set all calenders to 0.

Every calender is based on an expression of religion. Some calenders are set to the date of their born savior, while others are set to an event that marks the beginning of their religion. Going by that logic, then your event would have to be religious in tone.

If you want to go by the WoT (Wheel of Time), Robert Jordan marked the "Breaking of the World" as the event 0 that started his calender. But even that has some religious significance.

 

[Zero Angel]

Every calender is based on an expression of religion. Some calenders are set to the date of their born savior, while others are set to an event that marks the beginning of their religion. Going by that logic, then your event would have to be religious in tone.

I'm pretty sure *many* calendars were based on the reign or lifetime of the rulers of the region. Tolkien, if I am not mistaken, has each "age" of his world start the calendar over--there usually being some major event at an age start.

It's perfectly fine to have a non-religious calendar start.

I think he was saying that they were always familiar with it, but they couldn't harness it. Similar to how humans "harnessed lightning" so to speak by learning to generate and use electricity.

 

[Ankari]

I'm pretty sure *many* calendars were based on the reign or lifetime of the rulers of the region. Tolkien, if I am not mistaken, has each "age" of his world start the calendar over--there usually being some major event at an age start.

I was referring to real life calenders.

 

[Zero Angel]

Real life example: Romans defined the years based on the current consuls