Millennium Madness

In 1999 most of the world suddenly went stupid and people began to delude themselves that they were in the last year of the current millennium. Not only that, they thought they were in the last year of the 20th Century. But nothing could have been further from the truth.

Time is measured on Earth with the decimal system. It takes ten years to make up a decade, not nine, and it takes one hundred years to make up a century, not 99 years. By the same token, 999 years do not a millennium make. A millennium is made up of 1000 years.

January 1, 1901 to December 31, 1910 was the first decade of the 20th Century. 1900 was the last year of the 19th Century, not the first year of the 20th Century, just the same way the year 2000 was the last year of the 20th Century and not the first year of the 21st Century.

It's all about multiples of ten. You have ten fingers. Count out a decade on them, then a century if you need to. If you need to count to 1000 on your fingers to understand how a millennium actually works then there's really no reason for you to read any further.

I would venture to guess that Hollywood played a major role in confusing people about the year 2000, making them throw out not only what they'd been taught in elementary school arithmetic and high school math, but their commonsense too. Movies about the new millennium were a dime a dozen in 1999 and in the year 2000, most of them dealing with the arrival or the departure of Satanic beings on planet Earth and a cape-and-sword battle for truth, the American way and the girl next door, because that's what sells tickets at the box office more than anything else. Romantic fantasy.

Another fantasy was the year 2000 being billed as the dreaded Y2K, a year that would fall flat on its face as soon as it arrived. When the year 2000 failed to bring with it the collapse of worldwide cyber technology, it confirmed the biggest computer hoax of all time and not the first year of some mysterious New World Order. But, thanks to Hollywood and its insatiable need to make tons of money off brainless people, the 21st Century and the new millennium came in on January 1, 2000.

For the couple dozen of us who knew better, however, the new millennium unceremoniously showed its face on January 1, 2001. And on January 1, 2011 the second decade of the 21st Century will just as quietly show its new face. But if you want any peace in your life, don't tell anyone.

Y2K Through the Keyhole

The year 2000 was called Y2K in the last decade of the 20th Century by people who had an unhealthy, shameless fascination with it as well as an unfounded and ridiculous fear of it. These were the hi-tech freaks who were so in love with their personal computers and the Internet that they couldn’t imagine a new millennium or a new century or a new decade or even a new year without them.

In the average person's earthbound mind, the year 2000 was mistaken for the first year of a new decade, new century and new millennium, not the last year of the last decade of the 20th Century. So, instead of just being the year 2000, it was magically transformed into the infamous Y2K, where everything in cyberland would suddenly break down because supposedly short-sighted 20th-Century computer programmers had not allowed for the advent of the year 2000 in their programs.

So, the catalyst for all the Y2K hype was the misconception that the year 2000 was not the last year of the 20th Century but the first year of the 21st Century. Most people had no clue that the year 2001 would fit that bill like a glove. It was the number "2" that mesmerized everybody. A year starting with a "2" instead of a "1" could not possibly be part of the 20th Century. 2000 just had to be the super-cool first year of the hi-tech, space-bound new millennium. Even though it wasn't. Turning a blind eye to the truth, they called it Y2K instead of 2000 and didn't look back. Y2K belonged to the 21st Century and there was nothing that anybody with a brain could do to change that.

The great World Wide Web, only five-years-old, would die a swift and sudden death at the stroke of midnight on December 31st, 1999, Greenwich Time, and there was nothing anybody could do about it. Hospital machines would stop dispensing medicine, computerized manufacturing would grind to a halt, governments would fail, missiles would fire and Armageddon would arrive as predicted. And all because of the Y2K “bug”.

But none of that stuff happened.

And any so-called stupid, redneck hillbilly from Appalachia could have told you that.