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I have a personal gripe (which, if you know me, is not a big surprise). I hate it when people wished me a "Happy New Millennium" just before January 1. You see, it is not necessarily the new millennium, and it is definitely not the new millennium if you base it on what most people use to calculate the new millennium. You see, if you base the new millennium purely on AD years, then the new millennium begins in 2001. Since there is no year 0, you start counting one number ahead. You see, when you normally count 1, you are basically counting from 0 to 1. But since there is no year 0, the first year using AD is 1 AD to 2 AD. So all of your counting is offset by one year. So 2001 is really the beginning of the new millennium if you base on AD years. Now, if you base it on the birth of Jesus, then you missed it. Jesus was actually born in around 4 BC. The person who calculated the birth of Jesus, and thus helped start the numbering of our years, was off. He went based on info from the Bible. We know Jesus was born about 4 BC because that year a Roman census took place; with Jesus listed in the census. So if you base your year counting on the birth of Jesus then you celebrated the new millennium in 1996. And of course, you don't base your year counting on any Christian event, then this could just be some boring year for you. Other religions are at different years in their calendars. Heck, you could use your own calendar, with year 0 being the year you were born. So I don't start a new millennium for about another 979 years! So you see, this new year is not the big of a deal to a decent amount of the world population since not everyone is Christian. So, to sum up, all of this hype about it being the new year is based on the marketting of capitalism and the ignorance of people not understanding their own calendar system. :) |