Last month of 1999

[Frank Weston]

>Histeria and advertising have no logic, however.  That is why many people
>think the millenium is in a month.  I have over a year to plan MY welcome
>to the third millenium.

It all depends on what calendar you use.  If we stick with the original
Roman calendar, the third millenium would have begun on about 14 Jan 1247,
which would have saved us all a lot of argument now.  Unfortunately Julius
Caesar and Pope Gregory got into the act and screwed everthing up and that's
not the end of it.  Modern astronomers use the so called Common Era
Calendar.  I quote from my research:


"If you use the Gregorian Calendar and start the first millennium with the
year 1 AD then the third millennium begins with the year 2001 AD. But if you
use the Common Era Calendar, in which years are numbered -2, -1, 0, 1, 2,
..., and you begin the first millennium with the year 0 CE then the third
millennium begins with the year 2000 CE. You have a choice. And if you opt
for the Common Era Calendar you no longer have to put up with the smug
assertion that "there was no year zero (so the new millennium begins in
2001)". There was no year zero when Pope Gregory XIII introduced the
Gregorian Calendar in the 16th Century but there certainly is one now, and
the new millennium in the Common Era Calendar begins in 2000 CE."

Further, there is no Y2.001K bug.

Frank Weston