the actual meaning of 20 or more years. So it depends who is speaking apparently.

If a person is concerned with a genre decade (music of the '60s), then count from 0 to 9 (1960-1969).

If a person is concerned with culture, then you need to adjust the decade as necessary (1965-1974).

The 20's began in 1919 when WWI ended, and when Prohibition started.

The 1930s started with the crash of '29 and ended with Pearl Harbor in '41.

The 40's run from Pearl Harbor to the end of the Korean war or the USSR testing their first H-bomb.

The 50's run from about 1953 to JFK's assassination. The slogan of AMERICAN GRAFFITI, that quintessential movie about the 1950s, is "Where were you in '62?"

The 60's were a brief decade, but action packed. November 1963 to the Beatles breaking up.

The 70's were, in fact, the 70's. But there were two different decades in there. The post 60's disillusionment phase (watergate, more vietnam, worse drugs like cocaine) and the fall-of-civilization disco/pet rocks/Billie Jean King vs. Bobby Rigg/CB-craze/runway inflation mess.

The 1980s either begins with Reagan, or a year earlier with the Iranian revolution and when they seized the US embassy, and continues up to Clinton's inaugural. Some say the 1980s ended with the crash of '87 but I think it kept going through GHW Bush. I feel the 80's begins with Reagan rather than the hostages because the Iranian hostage crisis was such pure 70's kitsch. The yellow ribbon thing started. The most popular T-shirt was Mickey Mouse wearing an American flag outfit flipping the bird at the viewer and saying "Hey Iran"... that is SO 1970's.

The 1990s is pretty much the eight years of Clinton, but perhaps the fall of the USSR in 1991 is the better starting point. (After all, that made Clinton's election possible.)

The 2000s were nasty, brutish and short. Ended with the economic crash (fall 2008) and Obama. There are arguments to start the 2000s with 9/11, with the collapse of the internet bubble, or SCOTUS appointing a monkey as president to be funny... but it really started with Y2K turning out to be no big deal. The beginning of a decade of false fears.

One might make the argument that the 1990s began in 1991 with Nirvana and Pearl Jam and other grunge bands redefining culture. One might also make the argument that the 1990s ended on 9/11 instead of just the election of W.

Nice selection of an end point for the 00's.

The problem with using 9/11 is that the SCOTUS appointing a president was such a big deal, and the crash of the internet bubble started in feb-march of 2000... there was a lot of stuff flying around.

But 9/11 isn't bad, as a demarcation.

AOL buying Time Warner for (worthless) AOL stock is also good. That was the peak (and end) of the internet bubble.

One reason to start the 2000s in 2000 is the whole millenial thing... Y2K and all that. A fiiting beginning for a decade of false alarms and baseless fears!

The start of the 1990s is tricky. The fall of the soviet union is probably the best... I probably should have used that.

Thanks for the thoughts. I cheated an edited the post in light of them.

- Kurt Vonnegut