🚀 go-pugleaf

Bill Newton <Bi...@notwen.demon.co.uk> wrote in article
<daS67JAr...@notwen.demon.co.uk>...
> In article <01bc750e$7441ea00$5af62581@dferner>, "Daniel P.
> Ferner" <dfe...@concentric.net> writes
> >That's not true, just because the numbers (2000) change, that doesn't
mean
> >100 (or 1000) years have gone by.  We don't hit that mark until Midnight
> >Dec 31 2000.  The start of the new century and millenium.
> 
> As I understand things a 'Millenium' is a span of a thousand years.
> Does it not follow therefore that we shall  be celebrating our ENTRY
> into the second Millenium immediately after midnight on 31st
> December 1999?

Nope.

In the first place, we are already in the second millennium. We have been
for nearly a thousand years.

There was no year zero, so the first millennium ran from the year 1 to the
year 1000 *inclusive*. That is, the first millennium wasn't finished until
the year 1000 was finished. The second millennium then started, on the
first day of 1001. 

The next millennium will be the third, and it will begin on Jan. 1, 2001. 

I'm sure millions of people will be enthusiastically ringing in the "new
millennium" at midnight, Dec. 31, 1999. They'll all be a year early, and
probably half of them still won't understand this even when it's explained
to them.

Neil