When did the millennium start?

Answer 1

The current millennium began on January 1, 2001.

In the most common calendar, the Gregorian calendar, the first day of the first year AD (also known as CE) was January 1, 1. 1000 years later was January 1, 1001, and another 1000 years brings us to January 1, 2001. So, the first millennium was from January 1, 1 through December 31, 1000, and the second millennium was from January 1, 1001 through December 31, 2000. We are currently in the third millennium. 2009 is the ninth year of the third millennium, the first year being 2001.

Whilst this is perfectly true, there are nowadays some ridiculous attempts to justify the millennium starting on Jan 1 2000. This is because so many people have red faces over having chosen the wrong date to celebrate, a year too early, and don't like to admit it. The beginning of the last century was celebrated on Jan 1 1901, 100 years before, not 99. Children were wrongly declared the first born in the new millennium, and people rushed to see the sunrise in the Pacific, all on the wrong date. Which meant that in most countries the real millennium was not even celebrated with a penny squib. We will have to wait 1000 years to see if the world gets it right in 3001.

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The above answer is based on the mistaken view that a millennium only starts once every thousand years. In fact if you check in a dictionary the first definition you find is that a millennium is ANY period of one thousand years. So a millennium can start on any date. This is similar to a decade being ANY period of ten years.

So which date should we choose to celebrate the new millennium? One possible answer is that given above, which is based on the Christian millennium concept. But as a millennium can start on any date we are free to define it how we like. The reason 1 Jan 2000 was widely adopted over the Christian date is that the calendar "clicks over" on that date from nines to zeros. This is similar to the excitement when a car odometer changes from 99,999 to 100,000, and is what most people want to recognize. They are free to do so!

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The above rebuttal to the originally submitted answer, is largely spurious and based on an unrealistic suggestion that the millennial periods described are subject to 'artistic license'.

The "Millenniums" discussed are millennial events as described by the Gregorian Calendar. As such they can not be UNLINKED from that guideline.

One can imagine whatever quasi-millennial period one wishes in other contextual basis', but the Calendar Millennium, that this topic references, is based on the Gregorian CALENDAR, which begins with the year 1. (one)

As such, it MUST be attached to the ten year period beginning with ONE and ending with ZERO, as described by the CALENDAR YEAR it describes.

To say the millennial year can be some other period of time is like saying 2+2 is not necessarily 4. It can equal something else if it makes you feel better about it. Another example would be saying we in the U.S. don't necessarily celebrate the 4th of July on the 4th of July, because ANY month with a number 4 in it could be our basis for celebratory glee if it pleases us better.

The Calendar Millenniums are not subject to whim. They are ruled by the Gregorian Calendar, which time periods they describe.

The Calendar means what it means. It does NOT mean whatever I "feel free" to distort it as.

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I have to thank the author of the above for bringing to my attention a fact I had overlooked in my previous response; that this question is sited in the Calender subdivision of questions. So maybe I should have responded to the question as though it had said "When did the (Calendar) millennium start?". He/she is of course correct in that sense; there is no alternative to 2001 for the Gregorian calendar millennium.

Be that as it may, my original response was added in the context of debates about the celebrations that took place at midnight on Dec 31 1999, and I should have made that clearer. My point about the generic millennium as any 1000 years period still stands in any wider context than the Gregorian calendar. People don't have to celebrate the Gregorian millennium (as correctly defined in the previous post), or indeed any particular event. If they choose to be more excited about the "odometer effect" I described than the strict Gregorian new millennium - which I believe they inevitably will, despite this debate! - then that is a simple matter of choice.