President Encyclopedia 2001-2008

President Encyclopedia 2001-2008 — page 1
4 America in the 21st Century America in the 21st Century For the generations of people born and raised in the early twentieth century the twenty-first century only existed in science fiction novels about the future They imagined driving spaceships instead of cars watching robots clean their houses and living on the moon when the twenty-first rolled around But by the 1990s people realized that daily life would not be changing that dramatically in 2001 the start of the twenty-first century Even before the start of the new century life was changing and bringing both new problems and exciting new developments The end of 1999 caused one of the first problems People realized that computer programmers had not prepared computers to correctly calculate dates after 1999 All of modern society now depended on the correct functioning of computers If computers could not read dates when the year changed from 1999 to 2000 many important things might stop working No-one knew for sure if banks would be able to keep track of Words to Know century SEN-chuh-ree A period of 100 years For example the twentieth century lasted from 1901 2000 The twenty-first century began in 2001 and will continue until 2100 Y2K Bug why-too-K bug Y stands for the year 2000 K is the scientific abbreviation for kilo which means thousand A bug is a problem in a computer program The phrase refers to computer programs that could not read years after 1999 and the problems people feared they would cause Preparation for the Y2K Bug impacted the computer industry worldwide money if air traffic control systems would continue to work or if hospitals would lose patients medical records Countries and companies around the world spent millions of dollars to fix this computer problem known as the Y2K Bug As the clock struck midnight on December 31 1999 everyone waited to see what would happen The world breathed a sigh of relief as no country or company reported major computer problems when the year changed to 2000 The world had avoided its first possible disaster relating to the fast approaching new century On December 31 1999 more than 2 million people welcomed the year 2000 by celebrating at Times Square in New York City