· At about 6:00 A.M EST, Peter Jennings, along with all of the other ABC NEWS correspondents, started a day long Third Millenium celebration that was broadcast on ABC all day long on December 31, 1999 all around the world. It was a spectacular day all over the world, and here at home. I was watching most of the broadcast, and I just fell in love with the way technology is compared to 100 years ago. 100 years ago, ABC couldn't have done what they have done on December 31. They planted ABC correspondents all over the world with ABC cameras. They had Barbara Walters in France, and even Charles Gibson in England. They also had correspondents in Aukland, New Zealand; Sydney, Australia; Japan, China, Greece, Italy, South America, Canada, and other places all over the world.
· The first place to celebrate the coming of the new millenium was the eastern most island in the world and is an hour away from Aukland, New Zealand. This little island is Kiribas, or Kiribati. They renamed it as the Millenium island because it was the first place to go into the new year. They had no worries of the Y2K bug because they had no computers. The only people that were inhabiting this island was just a little tribe. The way they celebrated was the best way a tribe can celebrate, and that was to celebrate a little 12 year old boy becoming a man. His father lit this torch and they got into a boat to see what the future has set for him.
· The next place to hit the new millenium, was the first industrial city to switch over to the new millenium, and that was Aukland, New Zealand. ABC news had a Y2K tech correspondent there for this reason. When 12:00 AM on January 1, 2000 hit there (it was 7:00 AM on December 31, 1999 here) they
· had a wonderful celebration. About 3 minutes later, he went to draw out some money from the ATM machine with no problems at all. The receipt showed "12:03 AM January 1, 2000" on it. The first baby to be born in the new millenium, was also born in New Zealand.
· Two hours after that, Australia started the switchover. No Y2K bug problems here. In Sydney, they celebrated by a show of acrobats climbing up the world famous Sydney Opera House.
· Tokyo hit two hours later, and they had no problems with Y2K. They had a wonderful celebration.
· Now, I am not going to go through all the countries with you, but lets pick up about 9 hours later when the new millenium came to France. No Y2K problems here. The french people dressed up the Eiffel Tower with neat looking glitter light for an awesome show, in which it was. for the last 1000 days, they had a clock on the tower to count down to the new millenium, it stopped working at about 7:00 in Paris, but the show still went on. They found out later that it wasn't a Y2K glitch, but from water that got into it from a rain storm a few days ago. They had Ferris Wheels down a street in Paris that had different themes. One had acrobats on it, one you could ride, one was a constellation, and another was one you can leave messages on for the internet.
· An hour later the new millenium hit England. They celebrated with a spectacular fireworks show that lasted probably for 30 minutes in London. They had built a wonderful dome titled the "Millenium Dome" for this wonderful occasion, where an english singer sang "God Save The Queen" for the queen there, don't think the queen liked the modern version of it though.
· The first place to hit the millenium in North America was also the only place in the world with only a half timezone, and that was up in Newfoundland, Canada. They celebrated by counting down with dancers on stage.
· And then it started going downhill from there because it hit New York City an hour later and they did the traditional Dick Clark Times Square ball drop. And after that it just started sweeping through the US like a wind storm.
· The celebrations just kept happening all over the world as the new millenium started to pass through from country to country, and you were able to see it all happen live on ABC. When I was watching it, it looked to me that each country was competing against each other for best new year's celebration,
· in which Aukland started. Talk about a global community.
