“Five, four, three, two, one – HAPPY NEW YEAR!” And it’s not just any old new year. It’s New Year’s Eve 2000, and a brand-new century has officially begun.
Confetti rains down as you – and the world – enter the 21st century.
By the year 2000, people were less worried about dangerous things happening because of the Cold War, like an attack with nuclear weapons. The Cold War was a long period of tension between the United States and the Soviet Union during the 20th century. These tensions got better partly because the Soviet Union split into separate countries in 1991. This left the U.S. as the world’s only superpower. Even before then, most nations had signed an agreement in 1970 called the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. This agreement helped stop nuclear weapons from spreading. In the 1980s and 1990s, the U.S. and Soviet Union made other deals to reduce their weapons. The Berlin Wall was torn down in 1989. This wall had been built by communist East Germany in 1961 to separate itself from democratic West Berlin. Germany became one country again the next year.
