The 2000s

2000 (MM) was a century leap year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar, the 2000th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 1000th and last year of the 2nd millennium, the 100th and last year of the 20th century, and the 1st year of the 2000s decade.

2000 was designated as the International Year for the Culture of Peace and the World Mathematical Year.

Popular culture holds the year 2000 as the first year of the 21st century and the 3rd millennium, because of a tendency to group the years according to decimal values, as if non-existent year zero was counted. According to the Gregorian calendar, these distinctions fall to the year 2001, because the 1st century was retroactively said to start with the year AD 1. Since the Gregorian calendar does not have year zero, its first millennium spanned from years 1 to 1000 inclusively and its second millennium from years 1001 to 2000. (For further information, see century and millennium.)

The year 2000 is sometimes abbreviated as "Y2K" (the "Y" stands for "year", and the "K" stands for "kilo" which means "thousand"). The year 2000 was the subject of Y2K concerns, which were fears that computers would not shift from 1999 to 2000 correctly. However, by the end of 1999, many companies had already converted to new, or upgraded existing, software. Some even obtained "Y2K certification". As a result of massive effort, relatively few problems occurred. In American television in 2000, notable events included television series debuts, finales, cancellations, and channel initiations, closures and rebranding's, as well as information about controversies and disputes. All My Children celebrates its 30th anniversary on ABC. The series finale of Saved by the Bell: The New Class airs on NBC, ending a consecutive run for the Saved by the Bell franchise that began on July 11, 1987, when NBC broadcast the pilot for Good Morning, Miss Bliss. The franchise would remain dormant until 2020. The pilot episode for Malcolm in the Middle is broadcast on Fox. David Letterman undergoes quintuple heart bypass surgery in New York-Presbyterian Hospital, following an angiogram that revealed that one of his arteries was constricted seriously. Robin Givens replaces Mother Love as host of the talk show series Forgive or Forget. Chris-Craft Broadcasting (the 50% owner of UPN) files a lawsuit against Viacom in the New York Supreme Court to block its partner's merger with CBS, claiming that a pact signed between the two partners in 1997 had prevented either from owning "any interest, financial or otherwise" in "any competing network," including CBS, for a four-year period through January 2001. The following month, New York Supreme Court rules against Chris-Craft's move for a permanent injunction to curtail the Viacom-CBS merger and the enforcement of Viacom's ultimatum. 15 Rick Rockwell marries stranger Darva Conger watched by 22 million viewers on the Fox reality show Who Wants to Marry a Multi-Millionaire? While he and Darva are honeymooning, it becomes apparent that Rockwell — who is sometimes a comedian — had a restraining order against a former girlfriend and is not really a multi-millionaire. As a result, Fox cancels a rerun scheduled the next week and does not broadcast any new installments. In addition, the couple end their relationship soon after the show's taping. David Legler wins a combined $1,765,000 from the six episodes he has appeared in on the NBC game show Twenty-One, surpassing Curtis Warren's total of $1,546,988, and becoming, at the time, the largest winner in game show winnings totals. (Warren had set the record 4 days earlier on Fox's Greed, winning $1,000,000 by correctly answering a special Million-Dollar Moment question.) David Letterman resumes hosting Late Show with David Letterman on CBS following his quintuple heart bypass surgery in January. On the show, Letterman (whose father died of heart failure in his 50s) brings all of the doctors that had performed the operation out on stage with him, including Dr. O. Wayne Isom and physician Louis Aronne, who makes frequent appearances on the show. In an unusual show of emotion, Letterman is nearly in tears as he thanks the doctors. The episode will earn an Emmy Award nomination. Just as FCC's duopoly rules relax, Fox Television Stations buy out KDFI from Dallas Media Inventors, creating the first television duopoly to be owned by Fox (the same strategy is used when Fox buys the Chris-Craft company and WPWR-TV the following year). Paramount Stations Group and ACME Communications sign an agreement to broadcast shared WB and UPN affiliations in markets without competition. This results in UPN affiliates WWHO in Columbus, Ohio, WTVX in West Palm Beach, Florida and WLWC in Providence, Rhode Island taking secondary WB affiliations, and WB affiliates WBUI-TV in Champaign, Illinois, WBXX in Knoxville, Tennessee, and KPLR-TV in St. Louis, Missouri taking secondary UPN affiliations Viacom acquires Chris-Craft Broadcasting's 50% share of UPN for $5 million, making Chris-Craft's UPN stations (including New York and Los Angeles) the network's de facto owned-and-operated flagship stations. The year 2000 saw the release of numerous video games as well as the launch of the PlayStation 2. Critically acclaimed games originally released in 2000 include sequels such as Madden NFL 2001, NBA Live 2001, NBA 2K1, WWF SmackDown! 2: Know Your Role, Baldur's Gate II, Diablo II, Dragon Quest VII, Final Fantasy IX, Metal Gear: Ghost Babel, NFL 2K1, Resident Evil – Code: Veronica, Spyro: Year of the Dragon, The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, and Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2, alongside new intellectual properties such as Deus Ex, Hitman, Jet Set Radio, Perfect Dark, Skies of Arcadia, The Sims, SSX, Vagrant Story, and Sin and Punishment. The year's best-selling home video games worldwide were Pokémon games for the third year in a row (since 1998), while the highest-grossing arcade game in Japan was Virtua Striker 2 Sony released the PlayStation 2, which as to this day is still the best selling video game console of all time (with 160m+ units sold). Sony also released the PS One, a small revision model of the original PlayStation that can be played portably with a LCD add-on

Technology and Gadgets Cell Phones: Nokia 3310, Motorola Razr, and sliding flip phones. Music Players: iPod Nano, MP3 players, and portable CD players. Gaming Consoles: Sony PlayStation 2 (PS2), Nintendo DS, Game Boy Advance, and Nintendo GameCube. Computers & Internet: Dial-up internet, LimeWire file-sharing, MSN Messenger, and the early growth of Wikipedia, Google, and YouTube.

Music Artists: Eminem, Britney Spears, Destiny's Child, Linkin Park, Avril Lavigne, and My Chemical Romance. TV Shows: The Wire, Arrested Development, Friends, Survivor, and the launch of American Idol. Movies: The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Harry Potter, and Gladiator

Fashion and Toys Fashion: Low-rise jeans, flare or baggy cargo pants, trucker hats, studded belts, and wearing dresses over jeans. Toys and Trends: Tamagotchi, Furbies, Beyblades, Bionicles, Silly Bandz, and Heelys (shoes with built-in wheels).

A 2000s scenario features a transition era from analog to digital, characterized by early internet culture, Y2K anxiety, pop-punk and hip-hop dominance, and the boom of reality TV. It includes distinct aesthetics like low-rise jeans, chunky highlights, neon windbreakers, and the rise of the Myspace generation Internet: The digital landscape was defined by dial-up tones, AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) away messages, MSN Messenger, and eventually early Myspace profiles. Media: MP3 players were brand new, but burning CDs with LimeWire or using physical media (DVDs and cassette tapes) were the everyday norm. Cell Phones: Bulky Nokia brick phones or early flip phones (like the Motorola Razr) were standard. People actually had to call each other's landlines and hope someone was home. Music: The 2000s saw a massive clash of genres. Pop-punk (Blink-182, Fall Out Boy) and emo (My Chemical Romance) collided with hip-hop and R&B legends (OutKast, Usher, Eminem), alongside bubblegum pop (Britney Spears, N'SYNC). Fashion: Low-rise jeans, velour tracksuits (Juicy Couture), trucker hats, frosted tips, and Von Dutch accessories defined early-to-mid 2000s streetwear. Pop Culture: Blockbuster video rental stores were a weekend staple. Reality TV exploded with shows like Survivor, American Idol, and MTV's TRL and The Real World. Events: Society was shaped by post-9/11 adjustments, early social media platforms, and the eventual 2007-2008 global financial crisis.