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Well,
here we are. We have passed through the first year of the new
century without the calamity of computer failure or Biblical Armageddon,
right? Wrong. Not so, because the media doesn't understand the
Gregorian calendar; we have been egregiously misinformed.
The
Gregorian calendar in use in much of the world today is a reformed
version of an earlier calendar called the Julian calendar. Roman
Emperor Julius instituted a lunar system of months named for deities
of the Roman Pantheon in the year 46 B.C.E. (Before Common Era).
By the year 1582, Pope Gregory of the Roman Catholic Church noted
that Christian Holy Days were missing the mark by ten full days.
He ordered the calendar reformed to comply with the solar year.
He also ordered that the calendar begin on the apocryphal date of
the birth of Jesus of Nazareth, which he revealed to be 2000 years
from our present time.
Thus,
we arrive at the year 2000. This year is the last year of the twentieth
century. 2001 is the first year of the twenty-first century. Really;
and I can prove it. First, you must realize there is no "year zero"
in the Gregorian calendar. The year 1 BC (Before Christ) is immediately
followed by the year 1 AD (Anno Domini, or Our Lord). The first
century began with the Year One, and ended on the last day of Year
100. The second century began on the first day of the year 101.
The first day of the twenty-first century begins 2001, and ends
on the last day of the year 2100.
Does
this mean we have to go through the lunacy and hysteria which accompanied
the year 2000? Probably not. Much of the fear generated by that
calendar year was due to the fact that computer programmers all
over the world failed to allow for years which began with the number
"2." It's unfathomable that so many brainy people failed in the
same area, but it happened. The predictions of disaster came when
officials and executives realized that critical systems depended
on computers which contained this flaw. Ride 'em cowboy.
All
computers, except the ones in my closet which never get plugged
in anymore, are now updated for "2K" compatibility. We don't have
to worry for another hundred years. I think, we don't.
We've
greeted the new millennium with a fervor born of hope, with a bit
of desperation thrown in. The bad news is, we must do better than
we have about problems such as hunger, poverty and deprivation in
the coming century. The good news is, we can get a fresh start on
the century January 1, 2001.
Copyright
© 2000 Robert Marcom. All Rights Reserved.
Robert Marcom is fifty-four years old, and retired from the
profession of Contract Archaeology. He is the moderator and founder
of Net Author, an on-line
writers' community. He publishes Net Author's E2K, the group's
house journal. Robert Is the Vice Chairperson of Eguild,
and the author of two CdBooks(TM) published
by Waltsan Publishing.
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