Hate Armageddon? Aw, It's Not The End of the World Quiz

Answer: Revelation

In the Book of Revelation (16:16) in the New Testament, a place called "Har-Magedon" which is Hebrew for "Mount of Megiddo", symbolized where the final battle between the forces of good and evil, God versus Satan, would take place at the end of time. It is when divine judgment and the Second Coming of Christ occur.

Answer: Ragnarök

While the oral tradition began perhaps even before the early Viking Age, the Ragnarök story was detailed in a collection of poems called the "Poetic Edda" in the late 13th century, as well as the "Prose Edda" handbook written by Snorri Sturluson, earlier in the 13th century. The Norse Ragnarök (meaning "Fate of the Gods") featured a great battle between the gods and giants with each side destroying the other.

Answer: Kalki

The Hindus speak of the god Vishnu's final incarnation, Kalki, who ends the current age (Kali Yuga), and first appeared in the Sanskrit epic The Mahābhārata, in the 3rd century B.C. He was depicted as a sword-wielding Brahmin warrior on a white horse who destroys evil to restore dharma. He sought destroy the corrupt kings and barbarian armies that dominated the age of Kali Yuga. The violence would purge the world, sparing the innocent, and clear the way for the next cycle to begin - the Satya Yuga (or Krita Yuga), a new Golden Age of righteousness.

Answer: Maya

The first Mayan calendar, the Calendar Round system, measured time in an endless loop, which was an inconvenient way to fix dates and events in a chronological order in relationship to one another. So, a priest devised The Long Count Calendar in 236 B.C. which identified each day by counting forward from the fixed date of what early 20th century scholars discovered was August 13, 3114 B.C. by the Mayans' calculation. One Grand Cycle was about 5,139 solar years, and so a new Grand Cycle was calculated to begin December 22, 2012.

But all that meant to the Mayans was that a new era would begin, similar to what we think of as a new millennium beginning. The rumor that the new Grand Cycle would be Armageddon was fueled in 1966 when the academic Michael D. Coe wrote in his book "The Maya" that "there is a suggestion... that Armageddon would overtake the degenerate peoples of the world and all creation" on the last day of this Grand Cycle.

Modern Maya scholars and indigenous leaders clearly state that the ancient Mayans did not see this date as an apocalypse.

Answer: "Two brothers torn apart by Chaos" begins the 3rd millennium

In the 1990s a Nostradamus-like quatrain was written by a college student from Brock University in Canada, that showed up on the Internet shortly after the 9/11 Attacks:
"In the City of God there will be a great thunder,
Two brothers torn apart by Chaos,
The fortress endures; the great leader will succumb."

It was held up as an example of how easily vague lines of poetry can be retrofitted to come off as having pertinence to other unrelated events. It is human nature to try to seek out patterns and formulas. I liken it to our tendency to see faces in designs, clouds, even the lunar surface, due to our being wired in infancy to seek out human faces.

Answer: The tail of Halley's Comet

Scientists were able to perform a spectroscopic analysis of Halley's Comet's tail, and their findings revealed that a a toxic gas called cyanogen (found in cyanide), was present in the tail. When Flammarion stated that when Earth passed through the comet's tail, the gas could "impregnate the atmosphere and possibly snuff out all life on the planet" it gave many people cause to fret. Newspapers ran with that story and panic around the world ensued. Disreputable entrepreneurs exploited the fear of Armageddon, and sold "comet pills" and gas masks, while people sealed their windows, but luckily there was no need to exclaim, "Ah ma gettin' outta here!"

Answer: The University of Chicago in Illinois

The scientists working on the Manhattan Project, including Robert Oppenheimer and Albert Einstein, decided that it became necessary for scientists "to make judgments about what to do with their inventions," according to John A. Simpson, the first chairman of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists. At first the warnings were mimeographed articles, but soon it was developed into a prop clock designed by Martyl Langsdorf, who set the hands at seven minutes to midnight, partly because it "looked good to [her] eye" and partly because it felt like a scary enough setting.

So, it is still a metaphor, not an actual timer, but the hands are moved every January 1st to what the Bulletin assesses is the appropriate new "countdown" to catastrophe based on factors like nuclear weapon arsenals, and now also global warming events, potentially harmful technologies, world health, etc. The furthest away from midnight, in other words the best time, was 17 minutes before midnight, set in 1991 when the Cold War ended. In January 2025, the Clock was set to 89 seconds before midnight, the closest it has ever been to Armageddon. The clock can be seen by visiting the lobby of the Keller Center, home to the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy.

Answer: "earthquake" and "hurricane"

The song begins with: "That's great! It starts with an earthquake
Birds and snakes, an aeroplane
and Lenny Bruce is not afraid"

And then the second verse begins with:
"Eye of a hurricane, listen to yourself churn"

In 1992, songwriter and lead singer Michael Stipe explained to "Q Magazine" that "The words come from everywhere, I'm extremely aware of everything around me, whether I am in a sleeping state, awake, dream-state, or just in day-to-day life." And indeed, a big part of the song came from a dream he had in which he was at a birthday party and everyone there had the initials L.B. except for him. Ergo, the lyrics mention Lester Bangs, Leonid Brezhnev, Leonard Bernstein and Lenny Bruce.

Answer: Eiffel Tower, Grand Centra Stationl, Chrysler Building

The World Trade Center is also seen getting hit, three years prior to its real-life demise. In the film though, it doesn't get quite as obliterated as the Eiffel Tower in Paris, or the Chrysler Building and Grand Central Terminal in midtown Manhattan, New York City. Those got utterly destroyed by the meteor shower from the oncoming asteroid "the size of Texas". NASA, by the way, does have an official Near-Earth Object Program that tracks asteroids that could potentially inflict catastrophic damage, and they reassure the public that none of them are on course to hit us anytime soon. So far.

Answer: 5 to 7 billion years

Oh! I just thought of another way to physically obliterate the planet. An asteroid. Maybe "the size of Texas", but no, it would have to be even bigger than that. Anyway, scientists expect our Sun to naturally expand into a red giant in 5 to 7 billion years. So, there's still plenty of time to pack.

As the Sun's hydrogen fuel in its core runs out, it will start burning helium and expand in diameter to the point of encompassing Earth's orbit. The extreme heat will vaporize Earth's surface and atmosphere, making it uninhabitable, and then it will be engulfed. Maybe even melt before getting fully engulfed.