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 Japan decided to officially replace its traditional lunisolar calendar with the Gregorian calendar in 1872, so the day following the second day of the twelfth month of the fifth year of the Meiji emperor's rule, became . (The Japanese rendering of the Western months is simply "ichi-gatsu" or "One-month" for January, "ni-gatsu" or "Two-month" for February, etc.) This brought Japan's calendar in alignment with that of the major Western powers (excluding Russia). To this day, however, it is common to use Nengo, reign names instead of the Common Era or Anno Domini system, especially for official documents; for instance, "Meiji"