HAPPY NEW MILLENIUM

[James Bell]

David Barker wrote:
> so are you one of "those" who think we only have 99 years in a
> century rather than 100?
I probably should email this directly to keep this off the plug list,
but then again someone else might think the same way. I hope you were
being facetious with this, but in case you weren't, let's review some
simple facts and mathematics:

1) Years are not counted starting with zero in any calendar I've ever
heard of, and especially not in the one in use in the western world
for at least the past millennium.
2) The first year A.D. was over at the end (i.e. December 31st) of the
year 1 A.D. (IOW, start counting years in the millennium and you count
"1" as the clock ticks over to 12:00AM January 1st of the year 2 AD)
3) Therefore, the 100th year was over 12/31 of the year 100 A.D. at
midnight.
4) Therefore, the 1000th year, i.e. the first millennium, was over
12/31 of the year 1000 A.D.
5) Therefore, the 2000th year, i.e. the end of the second millennium,
was over 12/31/2000 A.D.

So, you see, there's 100 years in a century, 1000 years in any given
millennium, and 2000 years in any given two millennia, and you can't
count a year until it's done. No "99"s in sight. So I wish you all a
belated Happy New Millennium just 9 days, 1 hour and 5 minutes late.