In honor of the New Year, This Was A Thing is making some serious resolutions:

1. We're going to find even more ways to work Bea Arthur into future episodes. 

2. Ray and Rob are going to start a new Patreon perk - "Fight Club with Fred Silverman."

3. We will not program any computers in any way that could even possibly cause an infrastructure catastrophe.

If that last resolution sounds oddly specific and familiar, then you're probably remembering 1999 - when the entire country (and world) was asking itself: will we make it to the year 2000?

Rob teaches Ray about how the world nearly experienced a computer crisis at the turn of the millennium; why two extra digits make a world of difference; how the Backstreet Boys prep for the digital apocalypse; and how the fear of a global shutdown 23 years ago compares to the recent real-world pandemic experience.

If you like what we are doing, please support us on Patreon.

TEAM

Ray Hebel

Robert W. Schneider

Mark Schroeder

Billy Recce

Daniel Schwartzberg

Gabe Crawford

Natalie DeSavia

ARTICLESEPISODE CLIPS

New Year's Eve, 1999 Into 2000 - YouTube

Y2K - www.NBCUniversalArchives.com - YouTube

Y2K Bug: Much Ado About Nothing? | Retro Report | The New York Times - YouTube

The Y2K Scare | National Geographic - YouTube

Y2K Survival Kit Ad - YouTube

Y2K: Are You Ready? A Drill for Y2K Preparedness (1999) - YouTube

Y2K: Tensions in the Last Days of the 1900's - YouTube

Warrior News ~ Predictions For Y2K Millenium Bug - YouTube

From Freaked to Fine: Celebs React to Y2K (1999) | MTV News - YouTube

KGBT 4 Archives - Valley Residents Prepare For Y2K (December 28, 1999) - YouTube

WPXB TV-60 (PAX) May 26th 1999 Commercial Breaks - YouTube

Looking back 20 years at the fears of Y2K: From the Vault - YouTube

1999 - Millennium Y2K Prep - Las Vegas New Years Eve - KVBC TV - YouTube

Y2K News Report - YouTube

Y2k Family Survival Guide With Leonard Nimoy [1999] [VHSRIP] - YouTube

20 years after Y2K panic, what happened to the guy with a bunker of food? - YouTube

ADDITIONAL MUSIC & SOUND EFFECTS

"Happy Bee" and "Variation on Egmont"

• Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

• Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0

• http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Additional Sound Effects from Final Cut Pro, iLife, and Logic Pro

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