🚀 go-pugleaf

On 14 Jun 97 19:08:18 GMT, the skies darkened, thunder struck, and the 
words of splatter echoed in our minds:

:A mistaken observation is that our calendar started with year 1, so the new
:century and millenium will actually start on Jan 1, 2001. While it is
:correct that there was no year zero, there was also no year 1 or year 100
:or even 300. The gregorian calendar as we know it is just an arbitrary set
:of years, so the new millenium can start whenever we want it to, whether
:it's the first day of 2000, or 2001, or 1998 for that matter. General
:consensus is that the new centuries always start in the zero year, i.e.
:600, 1200, 1900, 2000, etc. There is no correct or incorrect start to the
:new century and millenium. I choose 2000 to begin my next century. Not
:literally; I'll only be 35.

It isn't a set of arbitrary years.  It is based on what was then believed 
to be the first year of Jesus' birth.  As it turns out, historians have 
accepted Jesus' birth being really around 4 b.c. or earlier by our 
calender, but it nonetheless wasn't a random year picked out way back when.

True, a millennium is any group of 1,000 consecutive years, but why would 
you just "decide" to start YOUR countdown with the year 1 b.c.?  The 
"general consensus" that millenniums start in a zero year is a testament to 
the public's general ignorance.