The Y2K Problem

While the majority of the country was partying for the turn of the millennium, some were worried about a programming flaw that would make all computers fail on January 1, 2000.

The Y2K (Year 2000) problem, also known as the "Millennium Bug," came to exist because there was fear that the clocks in computers would not update to January 1, 2000, and instead shut down from confusion. This was because computers were initially programmed to assume the date of the year began with "19." Thus when the year 2000 came, computers would not be able to interpret it.

Banks, the power grid, and airports, all of which relied on computers, were all threatened to crash.
As a result, the public was prepared for the worst by storing cash and food. However, computer scientists by 1997 were working toward the solution. The British Standards Institute developed a new computer standard to define conformity requirements for the Year 2000. Certain countries like the United States and Australia invested millions of dollars in order to prevent any form of catastrophe while others did nothing to prepare.

When the new year came, world disaster luckily did not come as computers updated to January 1, 2000, with few issues.





Sources:

http://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/Y2K-bug/

http://time.com/3645828/y2k-look-back/