What is a millennium?
A millennium is a period of 1,000 years. The third millennium of the common calendar began on January 1, 2001, though many people celebrated its arrival on January 1, 2000.
The word millennium comes from the Latin mille, meaning thousand, and annus, meaning year. The first millennium ran from AD 1 to 1000, the second from 1001 to 2000 and the third from 2001 to 3000. Because there was no year zero, the strict count starts with year 1.
Even so, huge celebrations took place around the world on December 31, 1999, as the calendar changed from 1999 to 2000. Many people saw the change in the first digit as the true milestone. Before the celebrations, people worried about the Y2K bug, a computer problem caused by storing years with only two digits.
Millennials
The term millennials describes people born roughly between 1981 and 1996, who came of age around the turn of the millennium. They are also called Generation Y and were followed by Generation Z.
Did You Know?
Fixing the Y2K bug cost an estimated hundreds of billions of dollars worldwide, and the year 2000 began with very few serious computer failures.