• Question: Why did people think it was the end of the world on 21 December 2012?

    Asked by 445spcc32 to Camilla, Dan, Katie, Mike, Rhys on 17 Jun 2015.
    • Photo: Katie Sparks

      Katie Sparks answered on 17 Jun 2015:

      I think it was something to do with one of the ancient calendars (Mayan calendar?) and they had predicted the end of the world for that day, so they didn’t make a calendar that went beyond that date.

    • Photo: Camilla Weiss

      Camilla Weiss answered on 17 Jun 2015:

      People just like the excitement of impending doom – who doesn’t love an apocalypse?!! Most people use the Julian calender which has 12 months and repeats every 365.25 days. We’ve now got used to celebrating the new year as a new beginning rather than the end of the world. The Mayan’s were a bit mental (although also pretty darn good at maths) and created a calendar that repeated every 5000 years or so, the end of which happened to occur in December 2012. They weren’t worried about the end of the world and saw the end of the cycle as a new beginning. I think people just decided to use it as an excuse for a really good New Year’s Eve party!

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