If the world indeed ended on December 21, 2012, it would have come as a great surprise to the ancient Mayans, whose calendar does not so much “end” as “reset” into a new age – and the date itself is debatable. Here is what we do know: The Mayans used a calendar system common to the region at the time (third to tenth centuries of the common era), which was divided in world ages. When one world age ended, the next one began. Based on early archaeological and anthropological work, the current world started roughly 3,000 years ago and tracks more than 5,000 years, making, by our calculations, the end of the world today.

On this day, December 21, 2012, according to the ancient Mayan calendar the five-millennia-long period of of bak’tun ends. The calendar does not predict a world or universe-ending apocalypse, nor does it predict the method by which such an apocalypse would take place.

Filling the gaps in this knowledge are more contemporary doomsayers. The more credible among them point to a once-in-26,000-years alignment between our sun and the center of the galaxy – such an alignment would cause untold gravitational havoc on Earth, they say (factually incorrect:  not only is the alignment off by several degrees, but also the distances are too far for any real effects.) Others suggest a solar flare that reverses the Earth’s magnetic field and releases a cataclysmic amount of energy (polar reversals do happen, but take thousands of years). Still others claim a hidden planet will emerge to collide with ours (preposterous on its face, but also because the date was originally to be 2003, which came and went). None of them have to answer the most important question: if the Mayans truly had the gift of foresight, how could they miss Cortez’s coming?