The New Millennium
The new millennium begins January 1st, 2001. That may come as a shock to those of you that spent the time and effort to watch the big number turn over at midnight, January 1st, 2000. Sorry! It works like this...
Let's start small and work our way up. A decade is 10 years, right? The first year is year one (duh!), the second, year two, etc. The 10th year is still part of that first decade. The second decade begins in the 11th year! Whoa, what a concept. Moving right along, a century (100 years) starts with the first year as year one (double duh!) and the one hundredth year being 100. The next century starts with year 101 and ends at 200, and the third century begins at 201. You get it?! January 1st, 2000 was the first day of the last year of the SECOND millennium. We start the THIRD millennium on January 1st, 2001.
Ok, so you jumped the gun. Big deal. You secretly knew it all along and just didn't want to embarrass your friends with their obvious ignorance. Rrrriiiiight. Besides, you only missed it by .1% of a millennium. Close enough...
