Y2K Proof
Never, ever, argue with me about the end of a century. This is what you will get!
The First of January 2000 WAS the beginning of the new decade, century and millennium. And I can prove it!
As you know, AD stands for Anno Domini ( or something like that) meaning year of our Lord and is intended to represent time elapsed since the birth of Christ. The AD Calendar however was not conceived until 600 years after the birth of Christ. You see the three wise men were smart but didn't get round to agreeing to start a new calendar after visiting the baby Jesus - and besides the merchants would have revolted having just finished chiselling the new year calendars based on the accession of the Emperor Diocletian. Many years later the monk Dionysius Exiguus introduced the concept of the years being numbered after the birth of Christ, rather than the accession of Emperor Diocletian. It was an easy change to make because:
a. He decided to do it before the New Year calendar drawing commenced and
b. No one had to change the αδ, as Anno Diocletian is the same as Anno Domini
Unfortunately Dionysius Exiguus had no concept of zero since zero did not enter common numbering until the eleventh century. Consequently we went from 1 BC to AD 1, missing 00 altogether, thus the common misconception that 2001 is in fact the beginning of the new millennium.
It is a known historical fact that Jesus was born in the reign of Herod who was dead by 1 AD, placing the birth of Christ at about 25 December 4 BC. If this was indeed true we entered the new millennium on 25 December 1997. However it is also known that the years 666 and 1666 were never celebrated as 666 is the devil's number. Had those years been included, we would only now be celebrating New Year 1998 - and you have no doubt already worked out that places us only 6 days away from the true change of the millennium.
So, how could 1/1/2000 be the true change of the decade, century and millennium when in fact it happened six days earlier? The answer lies in calendars and leap years. Our present calendar was introduced by Pope Gregory in 1582 (known as the Gregorian calendar you may be surprised to know) Prior to that we had the Julian Calendar introduced by Julius Caesar in 46 BC. The Julian Calendar was based on a tropical year of 365.25 days per annum. A bissextile was inserted every four years (no that is not a four yearly Mardi Gras, it is the correct term for a leap year)
Julius nearly got it right. Gregory and his advisers realised that an adjustment needed to be made to give us the Bessilian Year. This is an adjustment to subtract the .0188 of a day per year brought on by the precession of 50.3 seconds of arc per annum by the First Point of Aries along the ecliptic.
You are still with me I hope.
Anyway. To cut a long story short (albeit not by much). Gregory introduced the Leap Century. A Leap century happens every century divisible by 4. Centuries not divisible by four do not have February 29, those divisible by four do have Feb 29. Due to poor communications, the Gregorian Calendar did not get introduced until after 1600 which therefore missed the opportunity to be the first leap century. This year, the first of the new millennium, will be the first leap century.
So work it back. 400, 800, 1200 and 1600 should all have been leap centuries but were not. Therefore we should be 4 days less than we are. ie 1/1/2000 (which really should have been 1/1/98) should in fact be 4/1/2000 (or 4/1..............OK OK). So how does this get us back to to 25 Dec 1997 (which is really the beginning of the new millennium) when we have gone from being six days late to 10 days late?
Back to the Papal Bull of 1582. Pope Gregory was concerned that difference between the Tropical and Bessillian years over the centuries had caused feast days to slowly move relative to the seasons. At the same time as he introduced the Gregorian Calendar he caused the 5th of October to become the 15th of October (Popes could do that sort of thing), robbing all of humanity of 10 days and
Quod Erat Demonstrandum!
Happy New Millennium