Series : Equinox - Channel 4 UK Show title : Apocalypse When ? First shown : unknown Catalogue Number :

An exploration of the mathematical, psychological and scientific issues surrounding the advent of 1 January 2000. The programme speculates on whether the date marks the dawn of a new epoch or whether it is just another date on the calendar. 00.30 — 05.30 Introduction. The run-up to the year 2000. From superstition to science, and the idea of a ‘technological armageddon’. Apocalyptic cults, the Millennium Dome, and a ‘digital Utopia’. 05.30 — 17.55 The history of the calendar, and the calendar as a communication system. The inaccuracies of the lunar calendar. The River Nile: a clue to the invention of the solar calendar. Multi-calendar societies. Caesar as a great reformer of the calendar used in the Roman Empire. Leap years and variable-length months. Great emperors steal days from February to add to July and August! 17.55 — 23.45 The ancient use of tables to calculate the date of Easter. The birth of Christ set as AD 1, and evidence of a miscalculation of the exact date by as much as four years. 23.45 — 28.40 The thousand-year cycle. A comparison of events in AD 1000 and AD 2000. Millennia and religious conversions. The ‘Rapture’ when the converted are taken from the Earth. The potential for chaos in a ‘post-Rapture’ world. 28.40 — 31.30 The introduction of the Gregorian calendar in 1582 in much of Europe, but not until 1752 in England. 31.30 — 35.50 The Royal Greenwich Observatory and the National Physical Laboratory at Teddington. The move from planetary cycles to atomic cycles for timekeeping, and the idea of leap seconds. 35.50 — 42.15 The psychology of zeros — signs, cults and mass suicides. The web as the medium of choice for apocalyptic figures. Premillennial tension. 42.15 — end Date-related computer bugs and their potential consequences. The millennium as the biggest event of our imaginations! Produced by Oxford Television Company Producer/Director: Peter Webber Editors: Liz Meenan and Alec Edgington

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