The media hyped it and scared everyone. At the stroke of midnight, they were in the streets watching for the end of the world.
The world didn’t end at midnight in New York, and the media assured the world that nothing would happen, forgetting that there are 24 separate midnights throughout the world.
I remember the panicky ads, telling us to subscribe to the prepper magazines. I didn’t subscribe, just in case the world did end it would have been a waste of money.
I work for a computer system manufacturer who has systems around the world. We worked hard to make sure our systems were compliant and helped the customers working on their mainframe applications.
When the New Year came, we held a 24 hour party at our facilities in Phoenix. We would connect monitors to each of the customer systems when their turn for midnight rolled around. There were no "events", but we ate a lot of pizza.
We also had TV screens set up to watch the New Years in various locations like the Eiffel Tower, in Paris.
I read that when 1000 AD was to dawn, it was the Millennium and everybody would go to heaven or be destroyed. People burned their houses and possessions or otherwise prepared themselves and went up on hilltops to await events.
When 12:01 am arrived, they all went home to whatever was left.