Ronald L. Parker wrote:

> On Sun, 03 Jan 1999 05:42:59 -0800, Ken <tyl### [at] pacbellnet> wrote:
>
> >I don't get it. When new years day rolls around won't 2000 years
> >of human history have passed or not. Of course it will have.
> >Give it a rest and party on dude.
>
> Nope.  Even assuming human history began anywhere close to 2000 years
> ago, which we're pretty sure it hasn't, one year from now we will be
> just beginning the 2000th year AD.  1-1000 were the first thousand,
> and 1001-2000 will be the second thousand.  The third thousand begins
> on January 1, 2001 (disregarding a few calendar changes throughout the
> preceding centuries, which the pedants among us will refuse to do...
> hey, three parties!)

  Hmm, considering that no one is really sure how much time passed for
sure after Christ's birth until the year one and that the calendar
wasn't started for quite a number of years after his death anyway, who
is to say for sure that there wasn't a year zero.  For that matter, who
is to say for sure that there were years 1 through whatever year the
calendar was started.  So lets just say that the years 000 - 999 were
the millennium of years that didn't have a fourth column and that 1999
is the last of the millennium of years that started with a 1 in the
fourth column, and now we can confidently say that the year 2000 is
the beginning of the millennium of years that start with a 2 in the
fourth column.  :)

                    George

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