The Julian Calendar was created by Julius Caesar and came into effect in 45 BC. We’ve since changed to the Gregorian Calendar, but it’s only days different.
I find it very hard to believe Julius Caesar proclaimed it to be 45 years before the birth of Christ, and that the first 45 years would count down, not up.
So my full question: what was the actual date on say 1/1/45BC at that time? And how can we say we use the Gregorian Calendar when we seem to be 45 years adrift from it?
u/Kiwihellenist has some information on ancient calendar systems and the adoption of the Julian and Gregorian calenders here.
"I find it very hard to believe Julius Caesar proclaimed it to be 45 years before the birth of Christ, and that the first 45 years would count down, not up."
He didn't - adopting a calendar is different than adopting a dating system. Julius Caesar and the other Romans started counting their years from the mythical founding of Rome ("ab urbe condita"), so what we would call 1 BC the Romans called AUC 753.
The BC/AD dating system was invented by monk in the 6th century AD named Dionysus Exiguus, and was more widely adopted in the 8th century, especially by the Venerable Bede in his Ecclesiastical History of the English People. It's based on the estimated date of the birth of Jesus, although currently scholars think it's off by a few years. u/The_Manchurian has more here.
So basically, no: we're in 2022, because 1 AD (or CE for the more secular term) starts 2022 years before present.
No, we're not. Regardless of how the Romans counted years, we can do conversions and be confident we're actually in 2022.
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/language#wiki_calendars