Wait-a-minute, that's not right.
The calender that this counter is based upon is the one I use( you probably do too) It is called the Gregorian calender. This calender was invented by two folks. The first was Dionysius Exiguus, a Fifth century monk, who while calculating the the day and date of Easters for pope Gregory, realized that he was living in the 525 year since the birth of Christ. He decided to name the year Christ was born Year one, and the year after that Year two, and so on. Dionsyious told Gregory about his new calender and it enjoyed limited use for hundreds of years until this guy Bede popularized it. Bede decided to include the years that occurred before Jesus was born. He called the first tea before Jesus was born year 1 BC,and the one before that 2 BC, and so on. This is method of reckoning years works fine and dandy, but there are two potential problems when it comes to figuring millenniums. The first problem the lack of a year Zero. This lack means that one hundred years after the birth of christ would be year one-hundred and one (101), and, it follows that two thousand years after the birth of christ would be the year two thousand one (2001). So , it seems my millennium counter is one year off. But wait!, that's not all. It seem's that Dionysius was somewhere between three to seven years off in his calculations. The consensus is that Christ was likely born, not in 1 A.D. as it is popularly believed, but in the year 4 B.C. All of this means that, allowing for the absent zero, we should throw the Messiah a big two thousandth birthday bash, on December 25, of this year, 1997. Do the math. Happy Birthday to the big man! You might go Here to wish old J.C. a happy birthday, then again that could be sacrilegious

In case your wondering I was set off on this tangent by an article found Here in the The Atlantic Monthly