Are we sure when the 3rd millennium began?
Most of the travel industry was selling flights, hotels and vacations on the premise that 1/Jan/2000 is the new millennium, and that the year 2000 is the first year of the new millennium.
When does the 2nd millennium end and the 3rd millennium begin?
Decades, Centuries and Millenniums
A decade is a period of 10 years.
A century is a period of 100 years.
A millennium is a period of 1000 years.
Decades
The 1st decade begins in the year 1 and ends in the year 10. (at the end of the year 10, 31/Dec/0010)
The 2nd decade begins in the year 11 and ends in the year 20.
The 3rd decade begins in the year 21 and ends in the year 30.
Can you see a pattern?
The 10th decade begins in the year 91 and ends in the year 100. Ten decades should total 100 years and it does.
Centuries
The 1st century began in the year 1 and ended in the year 100. (at the end of the year 100, 31/Dec/0100)
The 2nd century began in the year 101 and ended in the year 200.
...
The 9th century began in the year 801 and ended in the year 900.
The 10th century began in the year 901 and ended in the year 1000. Ten centuries should total 1000 years.
The 11th century began in the year 1001 and ended in the year 1100.
...
The 19th century began in the year 1801 and ended in the year 1900.
This carries on like this right up until the 20th century which begins in the year 1901
and ends in the year 2000 - the end of the year 2000, which is 31st of December 2000!
Millenniums
The first millenium started in the year 1 AD and ended at the end of the year 1000.
And it follows that the second millennium begins on January 1st 2001 and will end at the end of the year 3000.
So, 1st of January 2000 is...
1st of January 2000 will not be the start of the next millennium! This millenium will
end on the 31st December, 2000 and the new millennium will start on 1st of January 2001.
So, why the fuss about 2000?
The year 2000 does have various claims to fame...
1st of January 2000 was expected to be the most critical day for the Y2K problem.
It's the last of the 20th century.
It's the last year of the 2nd millennium.
It's the first year for about 90 years that we won't say in the 20's, 30's, or the 90's because we don't say in the 00's.
It's the first year that we do away with forms that say 19__.
It's the first year beginning with 2.
It's the 2nd year in the gregorian calendar to end in three zeros. The first being the year 1000 and the second being 2000.
It's 100 years since the last year which ended in two zeros.
Ok, what about 2001?
It's the beginning of the 21st century.
It's the first year of the 3rd millennium.
Huh?
If you're not sure, ask yourself these questions.
If you worked for a company for 15 years, on what day would you have started your second decade?
- After 10 full years of service, on the first day of the eleventh year.
If you lived for 101 years, on what day would you have started your second century?
- After 100 full years, on the first day of the 101st year.
If a building survived more than a thousand years, on what day would it have started it's second millenium?
- After 1000 full years had completed, on the first day of the 1001st year.
If a building survived more than two thousand years, on what day would it have started it's third millenium?
- After 2000 full years had fully completed, on the first day of the 2001st year.
If you're still not sure, ask yourself these questions.
If you had tickets to sell and you purchased them in boxes of 1000,
they would be numbered 0001-1000, 1001-2000, 2001-3000, 3001-4000 etc. in each box.
How many tickets would you have sold if you sold the first 2 full boxes?
- Exactly 2000 tickets, right?
What would you need to do if you wanted to sell at least one more ticket after selling your 2000 tickets?
- Buy another box of tickets.
If each box of tickets was called a "millennium", what would the 3rd box be known as?
- The 3rd millennium box
What would the first ticket number of the 3rd box be?
- 2001, right?
The year zero explanation
An explanation for 1/Jan/2001 which I do not agree with typically follows this argument...
"The next millennium will begin in...
According to scholars and scientists, the 3rd millennium begins January 1, 2001, because the sequence of years from B.C. to
A.D. does not include a Year 0. It went from 2 B.C., 1 B.C., A.D. 1, A.D. 2 and so on.
The reason: zero was not part of the numbering system we use today.
So, the 1,000th year was A.D. 1000 and the first year of the second millennium was A.D. 1001."
-- CNN.com
Although this is a partially correct explanation, I do not agree with their explanation or 'reason' as re-quoted here:
The reason: zero was not part of the numbering system we use today.
No one in their right mind would have declared that there was a year zero! Who are they trying to convince - people who don't think? Just because there is a concept of zero, doesn't mean that it would apply to a case like this. Imagine going to the assembly line of GM the first day they produce a new model car and yelling out, that is the first car you've produced, zero. Or, for that matter getting to the end of the first year and saying that is year 0.
Zero is used for a moment in time that no person can pin-point but God alone, where at the stroke of midnight, the second after 23:59:59.999 there was a point of zero. The next minute after midnight on 1/Jan/0001 was the positive time value marking progress into the year 0001. After the end of 31/Dec/0001, a full year had completed and it could rightly be called a year and the year 0001AD passed into the first minute of year 0002.
If you're still not sure, forget it - get a job in advertising.
Quotes, References
"The Year A.D. 2000 will certainly be celebrated, as is natural for a year with such a round number, but,
accurately speaking, we will be celebrating the 2,000th year or the last year of the millennium,
not the start of the new millennium." -- Royal Observatory, Greenwich, England
"The commercial cascade of this millennium is now in full swing: in journals, date books,
the inevitable coffee mugs and T-shirts, and a thousand other products being flogged by the full gamut."
-- Stephen Jay Gould, "Questioning the Millennium"
