The '00s: Goodbye (at Last) to the Decade from Hell

Video by Finlay MacKay for TIME from a Red One digital camera. Set design by Gille Mills; shot at Pier 59 Studios.

At exactly two minutes after midnight on Jan. 1, 2000, an alarm sounded at a nuclear power plant in Onagawa, Japan. Government officials and computer scientists around the globe held their breath. Was this the beginning of a massive Y2K computer meltdown? Actually, no. It was an isolated event, one of a handful of glitches to occur (including the failure of 500 slot machines at two racetracks in Delaware) as the sun rose on the new decade. The dreaded millennial...