2012 phenomenon galaxy, or Earth's collision with a mythical planet called Nibiru. Scholars from various disciplines quickly dismissed predictions of concomitant cataclysmic events as they arose. Professional Mayanist scholars stated that no extant classic Maya accounts forecast impending doom, and that the idea that the Long Count calendar ends in 2012 misrepresented Maya history and culture, while astronomers rejected the various proposed doomsday scenarios as pseudoscience, easily refuted by elementary astronomical observations. December 2012 marked the conclusion of a "b'ak'tun"—a time period in the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar, used in Central America prior to the arrival of Europeans. Although the Long Count
Adoption of the Gregorian calendar Gregorian year 2019 corresponds to Heisei 31. Korea started using the Gregorian calendar on 1 January 1896, which was the 17th day of the 11th lunar month not only in Korea but also in China, which still used the lunisolar calendar. The lunisolar Korean calendar is now used for very limited unofficial purposes only. The North Korean calendar uses Gregorian months and days, but with Kim Il-Sung's year of birth (1912) used as year 1. The Republic of China government under Provisional President Sun Yat-sen abolished the lunisolar Chinese calendar and adopted the Gregorian calendar on 1 January 1912. The