Millennium
Milieu
Where will day first break in the new millennium?
Somewhere in the vast reaches of the South Pacific Ocean in the
predawn stillness of the morning of January 1, 2001, a relative handful of
peoplelocals and touristswill stand silhouetted along a shoreline and watch the
sun wink over the horizon. They will thus be the first souls to greet the
sunrise in the new millennium.
All locations in that first time zone just to the west of the International
Date Line will officially greet the new year at midnight as far as the clock
goes. But where will dawn first break?
Because of the curvature of the earth, the sun casts its rays on higher
latitudes (those closer to the poles) earlier than it does on those nearer the
equator. According to astronomers at Britains Royal Greenwich Observatory,
the first place to greet the sun each year is probably the Balleny Islands, off
the coast of Antarctica. But no one lives there. Finding the appropriate
inhabited island is a bit more problematic, particularly since nations are free
to set their time zones somewhat arbitrarily.
Apparently thats what the island nation of Kiribati, just south of the equator
in the Pacific Ocean, has done. Its far flung specks of coral had sat
squarely on the International Date Line rendering part of the country a day
behind the other. To correct this, Kiribati decreed that as of January 1,
1995, the Date Line would zig-zag eastward to include all its islands. By curious
happenstance, this means that tiny Caroline Island, the easternmost in
Kiribati, is technically the first inhabited place to see the sun each morning.
Providing no other nations redraw the Date Line, Caroline Island might just be
the place to be for the party of millennium.
Do you have any information on the beautiful refugee girl with
arresting eyes who graced your cover some years ago?
Unfortunately, we do not know what became of the Afghan girl who
appeared on the cover of the June 1985 issue of NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC and in
other Society publications. The photographer, Steve McCurry, remembers
photographing her in Nasir Bagh, a refugee camp in Pakistans North-West
Frontier Province. But we dont know her name or where she can be found.
Photographers in the field shoot hundredseven thousandsof pictures and are
constantly on the move. In situations such as this, it is difficult or
impossible for them to get detailed information about individuals
photographed.
Rarely has a NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC photograph stirred so much interest. It has
been such a popular image, in fact, that we have produced a 24 x 32 poster.
Orders can be placed in the U.S. and Canada, by calling 1-800-NGS-LINE
(1-800-647-5463). The cost is $15.95 and the product number is 81222.
How did our planet get its name?
It won a lottery! No, just kidding. It came in third. Ha!
Kidding again! It turns out that those of us who speak English call our fair
planet the same thing our forebears called the ground they walked around on.
The word earth comes from the middle English word erthe, which in turn
descends from the Old English eor. These words are related to the Old High
German word erda and the Greek word "era."
All of these words once simply referred to the stuff underfoot. Long before
anyone realized that the earth was itself a planet and not simply the flat
center of the universe, folks needed terms for the local rocks and soil. Once the planet concept took
hold, the appellation for the home realm carried over and became the planets
name.
Even today, because of the words humble origin, we often spell earth with a
lowercase e. But the lifeless planets, named for gods, get
capital letters. Go figure.
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