Tidbit for December 27, 1999:
It's Not the Millennium Anyway
For two years, I have diligently been tearing the pages from the "Countdown to the Millennium" calendar my friend, Karin, gave me two Christmases ago. Now that it shows only five days remaining, leave it to the special millennium collector's edition of The Old Farmer's Almanac to officially debunk millennium mania.
"Relax! Maybe It's Not the Millennium After All" is the title of an Almanac article by Bob Berman that asserts, "what we're celebrating" is "a simple round number in an arbitrary, man-made numbering system." After all, it'll actually be the year 7509 according to the Byzantine calendar... or 5761 according to the Jewish calendar... or the year 2660 by the Japanese calendar... or only 1421 if you turn the page on the Islamic calendar.
In fact, if you're less than thrilled with your plans to ring in 2000, never fear! You'll only have to wait three more years to toast the arrival of Lunation 1000. Berman explains that astronomers number new moons, and with Lunation 953 coinciding with the new moon of January 6, 2000, a moon millennium is on the horizon.
Of course, if you want to celebrate a "round number" according to the calendar of Julian Days, you'll have to wait another 132 years. January 1, 2000 is only day 2,451,545 according to the Julian numbering system, which started on January 1, 4713 B.C., so we have a ways to go to hit day 2.5 million.
A sidebar article in the Almanac by Andrew Rothovius questions why we even believe it truly is A.D. 2000. Our modern calendar was devised by a monk, Dionysius Exiguus or "Dennis the Short," who, um... may have come up short! At the behest of Pope John I, Dennis set out to replace the calendar that had been used since the days of Julius Caesar. "Dennis did some calculations and announced that the birth of Christ had occurred in 754 A.U.C." on the calendar based on the founding of Rome being set at 1280 A.U.C. He renamed that year "anno Domini," or "year of the Lord," and then figured himself to be living in the year A.D. 525.
Well... oops! As Rothovius says, "We know now that Dennis was slightly off." Even if historical evidence hadn't already revealed that the year in which Christ was born is off by about four years, the fact that Northumbrian monk Bede, who gave us the B.C. system for the years before Jesus' birth, forgot to "stick a zero between A.D. 1 and 1 B.C.," would mean that the new millennium does not start until 2001.
Order your own copy of the Almanac for a more in-depth look at the millennium question. And whether you're partying like it's 1999, 7508, 5760, 2659 or 1420 this New Year's Eve, have fun!
Back to Farmer's Almanac Introduction
Archive of Farmer's Almanac 2000 Tidbits
More Weekly
Wisdom from Almanac.com
Visit the official Web site of The Old Farmer's Almanac for more weekly wisdom,
plus five-day and long-range weather forecasts for your area, recipes, historic facts, and
more.
Photograph of Farmer's Almanac 2000 by Kim Knox, copyright 1999.
