Meet Dionysius Exiguus, or as I prefer to call him Denny the Dwarf. He was a Roman monk who lived in the 6th century A.D. and somewhere around 545 as a chronologist and scholar he decided to try and properly calculate the year of Christ’s birth, only he got it wrong.  Why am I telling you this? Because we are still living with the fall out, as you will soon see.

St. Denny calculated that the year of Christ’s birth was the year we today would call 1 A.D.  Never mind he was off by 2-6 years since Jesus was born before Herod the Great died, and Herod the Great died somewhere between 1-4 B.C., but I digress. In order to straighten out our calendar  St. Denny began counting our Christian era (or if you prefer, the common era =C.E.) with the year one not with a 0 year between B.C. and A.D.  All centuries thereafter run from 1-100.  So for instance the 18th century is 1701-1800, the 19th century is 1801-1900, the 20th century is 1901-2000, and that brings us up to now– the first decade of the 21rst century began in 2001 and continues through 2010!  This year is the last year of the first decade of both the new century and the new millenium.   

No, we should not have had any celebrations on New Year’s eve 1999 for a new millenium.  They should all have been on New Year’s Eve on the last day of the year 2000.    The easy way to remember this is that the 20th century ends with the number 20 plus two zeros–  20-00, and the 21rst century will end with the year 21 plus two zeros  21-00 and so on.  Or even from the point of view of simple math, when the math teachers ask you to count to 100, she doesn’t ask you to count from 0-99, but from 1 to the number 100, OF COURSE.  

Now about the media— news, print, sports etc.   I must admit to having a pet peeve. The media and its darlings may be forgiven for not knowing their Christian history very well.  But they should not be forgiven for fuzzy math.   It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that when you are counting to ten you start with 1, and when you are counting to 100, you also start with 1!!!  How hard can it be? 

So I am calling you out newscasters, sportscasters etc.   Enough with this images, pictures, sayings of the decade,  We haven’t finished the first decade of the 21rst century.  Get back to me a year from now with those pictures and sayings.     No wonder little Johnny can’t count in elementary school— his parents don’t do any better either.