THE world ending means not having to pay off your mortgage, so people are dead keen on it. But these civilisation-culminating events did f**k-all:
December 21st, 2012
500 years ago, some Mayan lad got bored writing his calendar and stopped it on 21 December 21st, 2012. And because we all follow Mayan dating systems avidly we agreed that the world would probably pack it in then. Until the day came and went without a single apocalypse and we realised the Mayans didn’t know shit.
The Millennium bug
On December 31st 1999, Britain congratulated itself on staying in getting pissed rather than paying £100 for a nightclub and £200 for a taxi while convinced that all computers would believe it was 1900 at midnight. Planes and Nintento 64s alike would think ‘shit, I haven’t been invented yet and burst spontaneously into flames. Until they didn’t.
The 2011 Rapture
Why believe scientists making accurate predictions about the end of the world when you could believe US radio evangelists? Harold Camping told the world to expect Jesus in 2011: once in May, once in October. What we actually got was Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked.
Large Hadron Collider
Your dad discovered particle physics when he accidentally watched a Brian Cox documentary after losing the remote in 2007. Due to this and a Dan Brown book, he became convinced scientists in Switzerland would create a black hole when they switched on the Large Hadron Collider. He may still believe this happened.
Planet X
Niche, hipster end-of-world prediction from your uncle who’s made friends with lunatic strangers on Facebook. An alien planet is going to appear from nowhere and crash into the earth. His sources? A woman on an online forum in the mid-90s who telepathically communicated with aliens. Legit.
