2012
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Years:
2009 2010 2011 - 2012(MMXII) - 2013 2014 2015Decades:
1980s 1990s 2000s - 2010s - 2020s 2030s 2040sCenturies:
20th century - 21st century - 22nd century
2012 (MMXII) is a Leap year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. Several prophecies and legends project this year as when the end of the world or an evolutionary change in human Consciousness will occur.
It is also the year when California's ban on the production of Foie gras is scheduled to take effect.
The year 2012 in the Gregorian Calendar corresponds to the years 5772 and 5773 in the Hebrew calendar.
Events
May
- 20th - Annular Solar eclipse
- French Presidential election
June
- 6th - Second and last solar transit of the planet Venus of this century; the next pair is predicted to occur in 2117 and 2125.
July
- 27th - Opening ceremony of the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, United Kingdom.
August
- 12th - Closing ceremony of the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, United Kingdom.
November
- 6th - Presidential election in the United States
- 13th - Total Solar eclipse (visible in northern Australia and the South Pacific).
December
- 21st - End of the twelfth, final Baktun in the long count of the Maya calendar and Aztec calendar.
As of yet unknown
- India's 11th Five-Year Plan (2007-2012) ends and the 12th one (2012-2017) starts.
- 2012 Summer Paralympics in London, United Kingdom.
- LISA will be launched to probe the Universe.
- The United Kingdom plans to complete 5-year process to cease Analog television broadcasts region-by-region, with Channel Television in the Channel Islands being the last area to switch off.
- One of the Royal Navy's new aircraft carriers will enter service, possibly named HMS Queen Elizabeth.
- The longest bridge in the world, the "Strait of Messina Bridge" ("Ponte sullo Stretto di Messina" connecting Sicily to mainland Italy is expected to open.
Theories of Apocalypticism and/or spiritual transformation
- December 21 - End of the great cycle of the Maya calendar's Long Count and a 26,000 year planetary cycle in the Aztec calendar, and thus the alleged end of our world (the end of the cycle is dated December 22 or December 23 by some calculations).
- According to the 1997 book The Bible Code the world will end due to a collision with a meteor, asteroid or comet.
- Interpreted by millennialists as a time when there will be an evolutionary change in human Consciousness brought about by a series of world changing events or revelations. Following this period of upheaval they believe we will begin a new 1,000 year cycle in which Peace, enlightenment and our environment take priority.
- The Olduvai cliff will begin and permanent blackouts will occur worldwide, according to "The Peak of World Oil Production and the Road To The Olduvai Gorge" by Richard C. Duncan.
- Terence McKenna's Novelty Theory claims that time is a fractal wave of increasing novelty that ends abruptly in 2012.
- Tibetan Monks specialising in remote viewing predict that divine extra-terrestrials will intervene at a point where the world's governments are about to deploy weapons of mass destruction. Adding to this, the Tibetan Monks say that the world is not ready to be destroyed and that our Earth is blessed and being saved continuously from all kinds of hazards that Mankind is not even aware of.
This year in fiction
- According to the Doctor Who episode Dalek, on this year a Dalek breaks loose under the Utah salt plains and plans to kill every living thing on Earth. The episode also predicts that by this year a billionaire named Henry van Statten will be the most powerful man on Earth, claiming to own the Internet itself.
- In the X-Files universe, the colonization by the aliens will finally occur on December 22, 2012; this is possibly linked to the Apocalyptic beliefs of Mesoamerican peoples.
- The Notion Club papers will be discovered at Oxford by Mr. Howard Green.