The year 2000

If you could think of one defining moment in this century -- for which future generations will look back upon and smile -- what would it be??

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"Venus"

July 20, 1969

Not to sound stupid, PB, but you mean Woodstock, right?

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The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.
-- Henry David Thoreau

No, that's the date of the first manned lunar landing.

Lunnar landings and wookstock......I dont know what the rest of you think but to me itll be march 9, 1999 the day my daughter was born

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Either let me fly or give me death
Let my soul rest-take my breath
if i dont fly ima die anyway
Ima live on but ill be gone anyday

DARK MAN X

The day when New Kids on the Block announced their breakup.

The day the Chicago Reader published the first Straight Dope column.



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Ranger Jeff
The Idol of American Youth

Server's poor response
Not quick enough for browser.
Timed out, plum blossom.

The day they invented SPAM.
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Sunset placid pond
where campers often linger--
rusted can of SPAM

December 17, 1903 is a pretty good candidate as well.

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Chaim Mattis Keller
ckeller@schicktech.com

"Sherlock Holmes once said that once you have eliminated the
impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be
the answer. I, however, do not like to eliminate the impossible.
The impossible often has a kind of integrity to it that the merely improbable lacks."
-- Douglas Adams's Dirk Gently, Holistic Detective

If future generations look back on the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and smile, I'll be glad if I was born in this century and not the next! Significant, justifiable, perhaps even necessary, but not something to look back on with any pride or joy.

I would go to 1942 and the squash courts under the unkiversity of chicago's stadium

January 1, 1970. The beginning of an era.

November 7, 1917.

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Cave Diem! Carpe Canem!

I get all the dates except January 1, 1970. Is that your birthday? Or are you taking note of the beginning of that particular decade?

Even though I wasn't alive back then. I'd have to agree with Papabear. 4-20-69.
My goodness, that must have been something to behold.

Oh, and what happened on November 7, 1917? I'm gonna guess it had something to do with WW1.

Adam

We've got man's ascension into flight and man on the moon defined by date. In this century we've also got WWII (IMHO one of the most significant periods of change in the history of humanity) that can be tagged by more than one significant date (including the A-bombs). Significant days tend to become significant years as the centuries roll by; the Norman Conquest (1066), but I really don't remember when the Battle of Hastings occurred, nor do I remember the date associated w/the signing of the Magna Carta (1215) but it is surely significant as a precursor to the democratic ideal.

For some reason I remember Agincourt as occurring in 1415 (Hank the Cinq) and Alexander's ascenscion to the throne of Macedonia in 333 B.C. Alexander, of course, brings to mind Ramses III, and all the other great conquerors of past. It's hard for me really put them into a perspective. Xerxes, Ramses, Attila, Hannibal (famous for elephants, but not for victories), let's not forget the Ceasers... maybe their collective assaults did help to forge some precursor of federalism.

Who dates the Rennaissance (as always, I'm here to learn) more tightly than early 15th Century? Who can date the telecommunication advances that are a signature of this century as tightly?

Reds didn't pass the market test, so I'm guessing that October 1917 won't survive as a day (month) that will live in infamy.

(Boy is it hard to do world history w/o any references - and I don't claim to know the stuff)

So what has our century got us?
- flight (both 1st step and interspacebody)
- telecommunications
- WWII and the collapse of imperialism
- digital computing
- nuclear power
- nuclear weapons
- automobiles and the oil & gas industry
- Barney & Bert & Ernie & FDR & Ronald
Reagan & William
Jefferson Clinton

Paul Johnson, in Modern Times attempts to link the beginning of our century, or the beginning of modern times, w/the 5/29/1919 photography of a solar eclipse that attempted to confirm the theories of Albert Einstein. This of course relegates the War to End All Wars to last century status.

APB9999:
The time 0 on your most PCs is January 1, 1970. Depending on your bios, your computer calander may be reading January 1, 1970 in 6 months. Enjoy.

A couple years ago, I would have said the fall of the berlin wall, but it may be back up soon, so I'll have to go with the lunar landing as well.

Venus aksed: If you could think of one defining moment in this century -- for which future generations will look back upon and smile -- what would it be??

Defining moment? Jan 1, 1901: by definition, that's when it started. 8-)

Really, tho... I'd have to go with 8/6/45, when the first atomic bomb was used in warfare. Fortunately, 8/9/45 was the last time it was (unless India & Pakistan get itchy trigger fingers in the next 18 months).

ARG220: Nov 7 1917 was the date of the October Revolution in Russia. Some here may view it as a positive step (like me), others will markedly differ in their assessment, but it's not something I think people of the next millennium would soon forget.

Incidentally, beatle, the battle of Hastings was on October 14th.

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Cave Diem! Carpe Canem!

1929-1945, the years to develop penicillin.That's when we went wrong, and will only find out just how badly, in about 50 years. The one cell organisms will be victorious!

falcon2:

You interpreted correctly. I'd just like to add that it is not just PCs, it applies to Unix machines as well (which is where the PCs got it from).

Around 2037 or though, there may be some busy programs recompiling Unix programs to use a larger word size (the Unix date is number of seconds from 1/1/1970, and if it is stored (as is common) in a 32 bit word it runs out around then.

Agincourt, beatle, was of course on St. Crispin's Day! (October...something)

So Jan 1, 1970 is a defining date because it will occur twice?

Easy-The Pill.

December 17, 1903 is a pretty good candidate as well.

What happened then?

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Remember, I'm pulling for you; we're all in this together.
---Red Green

Rilchiam -

You know. Kittyhawk? Wilber and Orville? And a big kite?

That's right. They discovered electricity! :)

The time 0 on your most PCs is January 1, 1970. Depending on your bios, your computer calander may be reading January 1, 1970 in 6 months. Enjoy.

For fun, I set the time & date on a "luggable" 386-25 to 23:59:00 on 12-31-99 to see what would happen. A minute later, I typed "date" again and it returned 1-1-2000. That old machine isn't capbable of accepting 2000 entered manually, but it will show up on the date.

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"Age is mind over matter; if you don't mind, it don't matter." -Leroy "Satchel" Paige

I'll go with Aug. 14, 1945, the end of what we all hope will be the last world war and the beginning of an era of prosperity unthinkable for previous generations.

I vote against the moon landing because I don't think that it was all that significant. Swell, people walked on the moon, but did that really change anything? I'd agree that it was a day of great symbolic importance, reflecting the huge advances in technology that had been made in the previous decades. Maybe people 500 years from now will think it was more important than the end of the Second World War. Maybe they won't.

By the way, Modern Times is well worth reading, even for people like Olen whom it is sure to infuriate (no offense meant) because of Paul Johnson's conservatism. Johnson believes that the three people who most influenced this century were Einstein, Marx, and Freud, and that their ideas paved the way for the moral relativism that he claims dominated the 20th century.