This period of time is rather a bountiful one for catastrophists. Not only do we have the end of the 1900's coming up in four months, which opportunists will declare the End of the Millennium, an obviously critical time for humanity and planet Earth, but the REAL End of the Millennium will be here in another sixteen months. Depend on it, when the sky doesn't fall down on December 31st this year, the second date will be retreated to with great relief and satisfaction by those who feel cheated if a major disaster is not imminent.

Ah, but there's more, as they say in the TV commercials. There's always more. Some folks in Japan are convinced that "the Great King of the Mongols"--referred to by Nostradamus in his X-72 quatrain, and who the Seer of Provence declared would descend from the sky in July of this very year--is China--always a feared neighbor of Japan. That gives our Asiatic brothers three delicious major crises to weather in the near future.

Of course, as with all these End-of-World scenarios, they fail to materialize, but that fact doesn't deter the believers one bit. They rationalize it away easily, and carry on as if there were no hitch in their theory at all. In some cases, locals who have believed a guru's proclamation and awaited an End that didn't arrive, have then turned on the failed prophet and have done him in. They were disappointed that they weren't fried in their tracks or carried away by a tidal inundation. That killing-the-messenger move is an example of Darwinism at work.

The Third Millennium will commence at midnight of December 31st, 2000 C.E. Why? Because 12 months after its birth, a child is one year old, beginning its second year. The child is 10 years old upon the completion of 10 years of living. The Second Millenium will finish after 2000 years has gone by, not upon the commencement of that 2000th year.

And note the notation of the year-date used above. I hope and trust that we might now begin to use that labelling of calendar years, which is far more correct and free of religious overtones. The abbreviation "C.E." stands for "Common Era," and replaces "A.D." "B.C.E."--"Before Common Era"--replaces "B.C." dates. Now, how about dumping "B.C.E." by placing a minus sign before the number? Just my modest suggestion. Sounds good to me.

Of course, the Nostradamians out there will point out that the "seventh month" he named can be interpreted several ways, due to the differences between Gregorian and Julian calendars, and poetic nuances. Nonsense. If Nostradamus said, "seventh month"--and he did--that's what he meant. Seventh month of 1999. (The Gregorian calendar--the one we now use--wasn't used in N's day.) Note that the Chinese, French Republican, Mayan, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu and various other calendars aren't anywhere near the Gregorian, in months or in years, but that's another rich field for data-searching devotees to look into. Something to keep them busy and off the streets.

I even had one "scientist" who argued to me that "seventh month" means August, because we should start by calling January "Month Zero." Sure. Oh, and the year 2000 C.E. is a leap year, but probably not for the reason you think. The year 1600, for example, was a leap year--no surprise--but 1700, 1800, and 1900 were NOT leap years, because of the rule that no centennial year is a leap year--except when it's divisible by 400. Why? Because of the awkward fact that a year is 365.242199.... days long, and these fine-tunings bring us to within 30 seconds of accuracy. Some day, way up ahead (about 28 centuries from now) we'll adjust things by a day to bring us even closer, but none of us reading this have to be concerned with
that change, I guess. I'll accept The Great King of the Mongols coming down from the sky anytime this year. Or next. I'm easy, right?