The next millennium begins on January 1st 2001.

Australia has chosen the right date.

What will Britain be celebrating? Can you work out what is special about 2000?

There are three things:

1. It will be the first time that any of us have known a year beginning with 2.
2. It will be the last year of the 20th century.
3. It will be the last year of the 2nd millennium.

But it won't be the start of the next millennium!

Now you can have fun asking your parents, grandparents and other adults if they know when the next millennium begins.

But be careful. They might try to get their own back by asking you to spell millennium.
Remember that it has two ls and two ns.

If you meet someone who thinks that the next millennium starts in 2000, tell them to do this:

1. Write the numbers 1-10 on your fingers.
2. Write 11 on someone else's finger.
3. Imagine that you have 2000 fingers. They will be numbered 1-2000. The number 2001 will go on someone else's finger.
If that doesn't convince them that the next millennium starts in 2001 you may as well give up.

Before you go. . .

There's something else about the next millennium that people keep getting wrong.

How do you say this date - 1950? Do you say nineteen-fifty or one-thousand-nine-hundred-and-fifty?
Everyone says nineteen-fifty.

How do you say this date - 2000? Do you say twenty-hundred or two-thousand?
Most people say two-thousand, and they say 2001 as two-thousand-and-one.

Why? Why? Why?

Is it because the film '2001' was called two-thousand-and-one?

If 1750 is seventeen-fifty, then 2050 should be twenty-fifty.

If 1626 is sixteen-twenty-six, then 2026 should be twenty-twenty-six.

If 1901 is nineteen-o-one, then 2001 should be twenty-o-one.

Perhaps we ought to have a campaign to get people to give the years their correct names.

A couple of final questions for you:

1. Was the year 1900 in the nineteenth century or the twentieth century?

2. Will the year 2000 be in the twentieth century or the twenty-first century?

You can go now.