The one with the millennium bug …
On December 31, 1999, the world was waiting to find out if the Y2K bug would crash computer systems worldwide or even trigger a doomsday scenario. As the clock counted down to midnight, we held our breath and crossed our fingers.
As a teen at the turn of the millennium, Y2K was both thrilling and a little scary. It felt like it was a night that would change our lives forever — cue “It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)” by R.E.M.
After all the measured speculation and wild predictions, midnight came and went without any fanfare besides the usual New Year’s Eve celebrations. It was the year 2000, and for now, everything felt exactly the same.
But did you know …
1. That’s gonna cost you.
In case you need a quick refresher, the main issue with the Y2K bug was the fact early coders used two digits instead of four to represent years in computer programs. What if the year 2000 was misinterpreted as 1900 instead?
Fixing this bug was a massive (and massively expensive) endeavor. All told, the U.S. spent over $300 billion (the equivalent to around $550 billion in 2025) to prepare for Y2K.
2. Visit our website to learn more!
The U.S. government worked to get the word out about Y2K — both to inform people about the issue and to dispel some of the conspiracy theories about what might happen as a result. They even put together a website called y2k.gov. While the site isn’t active anymore, it’s been archived so you can see what it looked like back in ‘99.
3. This feels familiar …
The Y2K problem was certainly unique to the digital age, but it wasn’t an entirely new phenomenon. When switching over from the year 1899 to 1900, similar problems popped up with paper records.
Back then, birth years were often recorded as two digits. As time went on, this caused some older folks to be mistaken for children — and vice versa. For example, a 5-year-old was summoned for jury duty in 2006 based on a mistaken birth year.
4. Live long and prosper
With Y2K predictions ranging from a temporary blackout to the end of civil society, survival guides were hot sellers in the years leading up to the new millennium. Doomsday believers started stocking up in preparation, gathering everything from canned goods and military rations to generators and firearms. Some people even cashed out retirement accounts and converted their money to gold.
Leonard Nimoy, best known for his role as Spock on Star Trek, hosted a VHS version of one of the many survivalist guidebooks released around that time.
5. Way overdue
One video rental store customer got a rude awakening on the first day of the new millennium thanks to the Y2K bug. Their copy of The General’s Daughter was accidentally flagged as being 100 years overdue, triggering a late fee of $91,250. Fortunately, the error was sorted out and the customer received a free video rental for their troubles. They were probably never late on a return ever again though …
6. Spy games
Unfortunately, some U.S. spy satellites went down after Y2K, and it took several days to get them working normally again. While they were malfunctioning, the satellites sent a stream of indecipherable information that caused a bit of a panic. Could it be a sign that Y2K was going to cause some major security issues?
It turns out the problem wasn’t Y2K (phew). It was actually the software patch they designed to fix it in the first place (oops).
7. Getting old fast
Denmark experienced a pretty adorable Y2K-related snafu. Because one of the computer systems there was automatically reverting dates back to 1900, the first baby born in the new millennium was initially registered as 100 years old. Talk about an old soul!
8. Y2K the movie
Hollywood didn’t miss the opportunity to cash in on the Y2K panic, and the result was pretty bonkers. Aired on November 21, 1999, the NBC made-for-TV film Y2K basically strung together a series of random catastrophes connected to the millennium bug, including a Navy jet falling out of the sky and computers unlocking all the doors in a Texas prison. Ken Olin from Thirtysomething starred as Nick Cromwell, AKA “the smartest man in the world,” who was called upon to solve the many crises that developed. The film was widely panned and criticized for exploiting people’s fears.
9. Never forget
The contingency planning for Y2K mostly went unused when no disasters presented themselves on January 1, 2000. But all that work went to good use the following year on September 11, 2001. Everything from financial institutions to transportation and telecommunication services were likely better equipped to handle the emergency due to all the Y2K preparations.
10. Do you have the time?
The turn of the millennium had all of us thinking about the future, but Danny Hillis was thinking reeeeeally far ahead. Back in 1989, he came up with an idea for a mechanical clock that would keep time for 10,000 years. The very first prototype, called The Clock of the Long Now, made its debut a decade later on December 31, 1999. As the clock struck midnight, the date changed from 01999 to 02000, with five digits used in anticipation of its operation many millennia into the future.
Today, a full-scale version of the Clock of the Long Now is under construction inside a mountain in west Texas. It features a 500-foot shaft and is designed to tick once per year, move the century hand every 100 years, and produce a cuckoo to mark each millennium.
No New Year’s since has felt quite as big as the turn of the millennium. Forward this to a friend who knows how to party like it’s 1999.
Editorial: Ashley
Illustration: Nick