---

Rant & Rave

By Yoon Jee Kim

Tuesday, January 4, 2000

Look beyond
millennium’s
last century

IN the last days of 1999, a lot of the media focused on the past century. Yet, everybody has been calling it a new millennium. So what about the 900 other years that are part of a millennium?

At the start of the millennium (1000 or 1001, take your pick), America was inhabited by the people we now call Native Americans. The Mayan, Inca and Aztec civilizations flourished.

In North America, the many Indian tribes lived life in harmony with the land until the white men arrived. The newcomers took over lands starting from the east, and now inhabit the whole continent without much regard to the environment.

The United States did not even exist at the start of the millennium. Starting in 1492, the North American continent began its path to the birth of the United States and Canada. It took 300 years before the United States actually became an independent nation from Britain.

A hundred years later, the United States had grown to reach the Pacific and also annex the Hawaiian Islands.

Science has also come a long ways since 1000. People then believed that the earth was the center of the universe. They also thought the earth was flat and you could fall off the edge if you sailed too far into the horizon.

Newton discovered gravity and the laws of motion.

Today, we have models of DNA and can clone mice. Where will the next 1,000 years take us?

The world has become a smaller place with the development of better transportation. Who would have ever imagined riding a Concorde from North America to Europe in three hours, when the trip once took three months?

From the days of horse-powered transportation we have come so far as to be able to travel to the moon. From walking to horses then cars and airplanes, the next step might very well be time travel.

If the last thousand years have changed life for most humans living on earth, what will the next thousand years bring?

I am both excited and scared to see what will happen. What might seem impossible today may be common tomorrow.

---

Yoon Jee Kim is a junior at Roosevelt High School.

---

Rant & Rave is a Tuesday Star-Bulletin feature
allowing those 12 to 22 to serve up fresh perspectives.
Speak up by fax at 523-8509; by answering machine at 525-8666;
snail mail at P.O. Box 3080, Honolulu 96802;
or e-mail, features@starbulletin.com