Leading up to January 1, 2000, people thought the world as we know it was going to end. Transportation, utilities, medical supplies and more were all controlled by computers, including nuclear power plants! Up to this point, computers processed dates in two digits (i.e. 1980 = 80) in order to save memory space, so the year 2000 (Y2K), that would become 00, the exact same unit as 1900. It was assumed when the clock struck midnight, computers would fail, networks would crash and the world would plunge into riotous chaos - it didn't! [1, 2, 3] Reports of the "millennial bug" had begun on September 11, 1996, [4], where software upgrades were needed. "By early 1998, the alarm bells were in full ring, and all were in a Y2K frenzy." Governments around the world spent billions to "exterminate" the bug! The US spent $100 billion on fixes, and $300 billion was spent world wide! Microsoft, headed by Bill Gates at the time, produced computer software which was sold with nearly every personal computer (PC) around the world, it just so happened to be one of the major beneficiaries of the Y2K crisis. [5]
