Reminder - everything changes 17 years from today

October 6, 2009 12:37 PM

What game changing reminders is my future calendar missing ?

I recently started adding notable, possibly world changing future dates to my google calendar as reminders. I have Thursday, June 1, 2017 as "Last of the JFK documents should be released" & "World Ends" for Thursday, December 20, 2012. It helps me in not focusing on the past to have possible world-changing events upcoming, even if they are a couple years out. What other popular prophecies, promised confessions, projected cataclysms or things of that nature should I add to my calendar?

posted by cashman to society & culture (15 answers total)

October 21, 2015 at 4:45 p.m. - Beat up Marty McFly, Jr.

That's assuming you're Griff Tannen.
posted by sjuhawk31 at 12:51 PM on October 6, 2009 [4 favorites]

The Wikipedia category years in the future gives a good year-by-year milestone breakdown. See also its timeline of fictional future events.
posted by Paragon at 12:55 PM on October 6, 2009 [5 favorites]

It's just me, but I'd add in the apocalyptic/ noteworthy dates from events in my favorite sci-fi films;

2013: Snake Plisskin trying to recover device in L.A. prison colony.
November 2019; Deckard is hunting Replicants

and so on.
posted by quin at 12:56 PM on October 6, 2009 [1 favorite]

2048-06-03 possible asteroid impact.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 12:57 PM on October 6, 2009

Not to rain on the Apocalypse Parade but it seems that the idea that the Mayan calendar runs out in 2012 is not true (which won't keep me from partying like the world's gonna end on December 21st, 2012). Here's the relevant bit from an interview with Mayan calendar expert David H. Kelley:

ERROL MORRIS: Did the Mayans really predict that the world would end on December 21, 2012?

DAVID HUMISTON KELLEY: No. It’s based on a false assumption.

ERROL MORRIS: Please explain.

DAVID HUMISTON KELLEY: They are 208 years too early. [The correct date is December 21, 2220 – E.M.] I wrote a long article on various ways of solving this problem. I included in a footnote that you could almost get things to matchup correctly, if you used correlation 660205, the Julian day number of the base state of the Mayan calendar. Which is also the interval between the translation of the number in the Mayan baktun, katun date, if you add that number to that date you get what we would consider to be the equivalent date. Ha! A bit complicated but I think you can follow. The colonial Mayas, most of them didn’t have any clue about this. The ones who did were the calendar specialists and they made sure to keep their mouths pretty tightly shut because the Spaniards were burning people at the stake for maintaining pagan ideas of which the calendar was a major part. The calendar determined all the ceremonies and rituals, when people were sacrificed, all the nasty things and all the good things.
posted by Kattullus at 1:15 PM on October 6, 2009

This might help...

A few I liked...
Tuesday November 6, 2012: The US elects a female president. (Back to the future II)
Wednesday November 5th, 2014: The old Bailey is blown up (V for vendetta)
Saturday October 10, 2015 Chicago cubs win world series for the first time since 1908. (Back to the future II).
Sunday February 14th 2016: Elaine Predicts the end of the world (Ghostbusters 2)
Sunday July 4th, 2032: John Connor Dies - OOPS.
Tuesday, August 3 2032 Simon Pheonix escapes cryofacility during his hearing (Demolition Man)
March 22, 2233 James T. Kirk is born.
10191 The Sardaukar attack on Arrakis killing Duke Leto...
posted by Nanukthedog at 1:30 PM on October 6, 2009

Sci-fi is cool but I did mean real-world events.
posted by cashman at 1:32 PM on October 6, 2009

Kurzweil's singularity: sometime in 2045
Year 2038 problem
posted by sid at 1:45 PM on October 6, 2009

Astronomy:
August 21, 2017 first visible Solar Eclipse in US. The location and time of "greatest eclipse" will be on the western edge of Christian County, Kentucky at 36.9715 degrees North and 87.6559 degrees West occurring at 18:25.4716 UTC (From wikipedia on Paragon's link).

OJ simpson will also be eligible for parole that year...
posted by Nanukthedog at 1:47 PM on October 6, 2009

The next transit of Venus will be 6 June 2012.
posted by soelo at 3:17 PM on October 6, 2009

It's in the past, but:

"The Skynet Funding Bill is passed. The system goes on-line August 4th, 1997. Human decisions are removed from strategic defense. Skynet begins to learn at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware at 2:14 a.m. Eastern time, August 29th. In a panic, they try to pull the plug."
posted by pwnguin at 10:30 PM on October 6, 2009

Paragon's link is great!

2050: According to a 2002 study by World Wildlife Fund, planet Earth will no longer have sufficient resources to sustain human life.

2058: The Beatles catalogue will enter the public domain, assuming that copyright is not extended again.

(And assuming human life hasn't been snuffed out.)
posted by CunningLinguist at 5:52 AM on October 7, 2009

Sci-fi is cool but I did mean real-world events.
What? The world ending in 2012 is "real-word", but James T Kirk's birthday isn't?
posted by sideshow at 6:40 AM on October 7, 2009

Sideshow - Mayans genuinely believed the 2012 thing (although apparently they believed the December 21, 2220 thing). Noone genuinely believes Kirk is real. 2220 was 'Real-world' in that sense.
posted by Cantdosleepy at 7:26 AM on October 7, 2009

this would make an awesome public ical subscription.
posted by rmd1023 at 5:59 PM on October 9, 2009