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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
World
Simon Goodley and Richard Nelsson

How a batch of tinned meat fostered fears of the millennium bug

People in Hong Kong queue to use cash machines
People in Hong Kong queueing to withdraw cash on 30 December 1999 amid fears that banking systems would break down when the clocks rang in the new millennium. Photograph: Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images

On New Year’s Eve 25 years ago, sane people worried that the modern world was about to melt down.

The millennium bug seemed to be threatening to crash the world’s computer systems, as technology struggled to distinguish between the years 1900 and 2000. The public, faced with daily predictions of potentially terrible outcomes, braced themselves nervously.

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