August 11, 3114 BC

The most recent world cycle of Mesoamerican Long Count calendar begins.

Click pic above to see full size.

Without it, crazies would have to come up with an end of the world date other than December 21, 2012. According to mythology, the gods created the world four times, the first three being failures. The previous creation ended on 12.19.19.17.19 on the calendar, which was August 10, 3114 BC. Therefore, since the fourth and (up to now) final creation started the next day, the calendar was reset to 0.0.0.0.0 rather than 13.0.0.0.0.

December 20, 2012 represents the next time we will hit 12.19.19.17.19 on the calendar. December 21, 2012 will be 13.0.0.0.0 and life will go on.

For those interested in understanding the periods:

Representation	Long Count subdivisions	Days	~ solar years
0.0.0.0.1	1 k'in	1	1/365
0.0.0.1.0	1 winal = 20 k'in	20	0.055
0.0.1.0.0	1 tun = 18 winal	360	0.986
0.1.0.0.0	1 k'atun = 20 tun	7,200	19.71
1.0.0.0.0	1 b'ak'tun = 20 k'atun	144,000	394.3

 

Other than the fact that the last creation ended at the end of the 13th b'ak'tun, there’s no good reason to assume that we couldn’t have 20 b'ak'tuns. The end of the 20th b'ak'tun will be on October 12, 4772. Will that be the end of the world, then?

Well, I don’t think that I’ll be around to see it, but I sincerely doubt it.

August 11, 2001

Around this time, the flight instructors for Zacarias Moussaoui become suspicious and fear he may be planning to hijack a commercial flight.

In addition, it is unusual that he has no aviation background, very little experience, and no pilot’s license. All other pilots at the center, even “vanity pilots”—wealthy individuals who just want the thrill of flying a large jet—have many times more flying hours than Moussaoui and are all licensed; [US CONGRESS, 10/17/2002; STAR-TRIBUNE (MINNEAPOLIS), 4/24/2005; RAKE, 5/2005]
He has flown for 57 hours at flight school in Oklahoma, but not yet flown solo, which is unusual. The school’s manager of pilot training, Alan McHale, will later comment, “My worst student was a grandma, and I got her to solo after 21 hours;” [STAR-TRIBUNE (MINNEAPOLIS), 4/24/2005]
He is not just buying a one-period joyride, but a whole course; [STAR-TRIBUNE (MINNEAPOLIS), 4/24/2005]
He seems determined to pack a large amount of training in a short period for no apparent reason; [NEW YORK TIMES, 2/8/2002]
He is “extremely” interested in the operation of the plane’s doors and control panel. [US CONGRESS, 10/17/2002] He also is very keen to learn the protocol for communicating with the flight tower, despite claiming to have no plans to become an actual pilot; [NEW YORK TIMES, 2/8/2002]
He talks to some Syrian airline pilots training at the facility, and the pilots tell Nelson that Moussaoui is fluent in Arabic. Nelson, who is already worried Moussaoui might be up to no good, thinks, “One more red flag;” [STAR-TRIBUNE (MINNEAPOLIS), 4/24/2005; CNN, 3/2/2006]