End of the World?

     Over five years ago, I heard about how the world was going to end in 2012. I was mildly shocked about how it would happen before Christmas. No presents! I also thought about how old I would be, and how I would look as a teenager, with a purse and boyfriend, and going to High School. It's 2012, and only one of the predictions came true, the rest didn't. First of all, the world didn't end. Second, I don't have a purse or a boyfriend. The only one that came true was the inevitable, and I am in High School.
     Back to the main topic, why do people come up with end of the world dates? Well, the practice of coming up with a date for the end of the world can be traced back to the Romans over 600 years B.C.E (That means Before Common Era, or before Christianity was a religion. Alternately, C.E means Common Era, or after the death of Jesus which is the time period we are living in.) That was one of the first recorded apocalypse dates, and with many more to come.
     Nostradamus, a famous prophet from the 1500s predicted that the world would end in 1999, and guess what, it never did. Every date for the end of the world has not come true. This is the case with the most recent one, which was yesterday. Probably the most famous one so far, the 21st of December, 2012 is just another case of false predictions.
     Most doomsday prediction dates have a reason behind them. Whether it be biblical, signs in the stars, or just a hoax made up by someone who wants money, there's always one. So what's the story behind the 21st? Well, the date can be traced back to a calendar that the Mayans used. The Mayans, an indigenous group that lived in what is now modern day south Mexico, or Yucatan (On an unrelated little fact, the ancestry on my dad's side are Mayan.) The long count calendar, called Tzolk'in, pronounced sol-kin, is the one that ended yesterday.
     Even though it ended, it never meant the end of the world, not even to the Mayans. The Mayans actually never predicted an end of the world date. The Tzolk'in started over. The reason it can be assumed that it started over is that, obviously, the world did not end, and the calender is circular, and was meant to start over. 
     A lot of people considered things like planetary alignment, solar flares, and other "signs" like a ring around the moon and more. Nothing out of the ordinary happened. No planetary alignments or anything. Only a solstice, which happens every year on this date, which is something that scientists knew from the start. Even NASA insisted that nothing would happen, and they (and many other scientific groups) were right.
  There is only one end of the world date that I believe in that science has proven correct. It will be in about 5 billion years, which is when our sun finishes the phase that is currently in and becomes a red giant, expanding and destroying Earth. Luckily for us, we won't be around to see this, and we can continue living on the planet for many years to come. Unless aliens come and take us away, or the planet Niribu crashes to Earth, or if there is a nuclear war...the list could go on and on! Anyway, happy holidays!

The Mayan Calendar