I watched that History Channel Special and it was interesting, but people around the world have been doing this for centuries. Y2k was the latest example: Electronics going haywire, things going awry, it didn't happen. There was many of these prophecies. One of them was about this Christian man (sorry, but forgot his name) who had used the Bible to see and predict that the world would end sometime around like 1600 or so. He told all the people that the world would end, and many people believed him, but again nothing happened. People put too much into prophecies. Ever wonder why someone finds a "correct" prediction of Nostradamus AFTER the thing happened? It's all about interpretation. Someone may think that it means this, while another may not. There are many doomsday prophecies by various people. People are so into this thing, like the Bible Code, even though it's not that deep as people think. These theories have been very diverse, stating that the world will end to that aliens will come, or that we will become more in touch with the world.I'm sorry that I'm taking this exactly from wikipedia but it proves my point:"Maya stela occasionally show dates beyond 2012. Most of these are in the form of "distance dates", where a Long Count date is given with a distance date to be added. For example, on Tikal Stela 10 we find the following Long Count date: 9.8.9.13.0 8 Ahau 13 Pop (24th March 603 AD Gregorian) with a distance date of 10.11.10.5.8. The resulting date is given as 1.0.0.0.0.8 5 Lamat 1 Mol, or 21st October 4772 AD ? almost 3,000 years into the future.""Despite the publicity generated by the 2012 date, Susan Milbraath, curator of Latin American Art and Archaeology at the Florida Museum of Natural History, stated that "We [the archaeological community] have no record or knowledge that [the Maya] would think the world would come to an end" in 2012.""For the ancient Maya, it was a huge celebration to make it to the end of a whole cycle," says Sandra Noble, executive director of the Foundation for the Advancement of Mesoamerican Studies in Crystal River, Fla. To render Dec. 21, 2012, as a doomsday or moment of cosmic shifting, she says, is "a complete fabrication and a chance for a lot of people to cash in."Much like with Y2k (the many "life preserving kits") this is mostly some loose interpretation that is most probably going to be used to make a lil money. I am not saying that people made this date up just for money, but people will try to milk it for something.This just happens to be something that will not happen again for a long time (a new millenium in 2000 as well) and people think that there HAS to be some significance to it. Evangelists have been telling people on t.v. for years that the "end times are coming, repent now." Then they pass the collection plate, and ask for you to buy some Jesus Juice to help cure AIDS.