Hi mommyof2,
First off, neither Nostradamus nor the Maya predicted anything to happen in 2012. In fact, both Nostradamus and the Maya had predictions far in the future. I believe it was 4772 for a Mayan celebration that is to take place, and 3790 for a Nostradamus prediction. So it's clear that none of them expected the world to end in 2012.
Back in the 60's, Michael Coe, in a book about the Maya, speculated that ,if the thought the world began at the start of this long count in 3114 BC, maybe they thought it would end at the end of it.
Jose Arguelles, an art historian who thought he was the only one who could interpret the Mayan calendar, decided that it was ending on December 21, 2012. No one really started trying to make it a doomsday date until Nancy Lieder (who hears aliens in her head and gets messages from them in boxes of candy) needed a new date for her end of the world after it didn't happen in May, 2003. She also wanted to jazz up her Planet X story for the new doomsday, so she hijacked Zecharia Sitchen's fake planet Nibiru. He was another one like Arguelles, only he was an economist who thought he could interpret ancient Sumerian. He mistook their reference to the planet Jupiter, which they called Nibiru, for an additional planet. Then he made up this story about it having inhabitants and this impossible 3600 year orbit. His claim though, was that it would come back in 2085. Since it was all fake anyway, and Nancy doesn't worry about a little thing like facts either, Nibiru was added to her 2012 fantasy.
It's all a big money maker and certainly nothing to be taken seriously.
