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The Great Fear: The 5 Minutes the World Waited for the Y2K Bug to End It All

A collage of 1999 magazine and newspaper covers about the Y2K computer bug, featuring headlines like "THE END OF THE WORLD !?!" from Time, "THE DAY THE WORLD CRASHES" from Newsweek, and apocalyptic warnings like "JANUARY 1, 2000 IS THIS THE END?", with a blurred center for text overlay.

It sounds ridiculous today, the idea that civilization teetered on collapse because computers couldn’t count past “99.” But rewind to New Year’s Eve 1999, and the Y2K bug gripped the planet in unprecedented dread. For those five tense minutes around midnight, billions…