It was on March 25th, in the year 3019 of the Third Age, that The One Ring was destroyed in the fires of Mount Doom. Today we celebrate that momentous event. So, happy Doom Day, one and all!

And when exactly was this?

Tolkien said that Middle-Earth was supposed to be our own Earth long, long ago in a now forgotten mythical era. The end of the Third Age was apparently 6,000 years ago, or about 4,000 BC. As with Robert E. Howard's Hyborian Age though, it is all just make believe.

Here's a map overlaying Middle-Earth and Europe, which places Mount Doom in the region of modern-day Transylvania.

http://strangemaps.files.wordpress.com/200...iddle-earth.jpg

Heresy!

I believe in the literal truth of scripture (i.e., the Silmarillion, The Hobbit, and LoTR). One day, I want to write a book critiquing evolution, because it conflicts with the creation account given in the Silmarillion. I also want to lead an expedition to Transylvania, in order to find archaeological evidence to support the theory that Mordor once existed there.

BTW, my tongue is obviously in my cheek, and, yes, I know it's all make believe. I just like making believe.

You could probably get a grant for that.

Actually, I recently put together a day tracking calendar for TOR, and included both the Westron and Shire Calendars. The most recent version compares our modern calendar with the Westron Calendar, and it can be found here.

As you can see, March 25 of the Westron Calendar corresponds to March 27 on our calendar, but it's actually a bit more complicated than that. The Westron leap year adds a day after Midsummer (loende), whereas ours obviously adds a 29th day to February. So on leap years (such as 2012) Doom Day would be on March 26 of our calendar, rather than the 27.

In other words, you're a day early

I don't hold with such woolly liberal thinking. The Good Book says March 25th. Eru said it, I believe it.

But, seriously, your tracking calendar is quite interesting

Hi Brooke,
I love this game too.
The "literal truth of scripture (i.e., the Silmarillion, The Hobbit, and LotR)" is actively refuted by the powers of darkness themselves to this very day.

The seed of Morgoth's will has continued within Middle-earth, beyond the permanent reduction of his lieutenant and successor (Dark Lord II) as recounted in the original Red Book of Westmarch.

Agents of the Dark Religion persisted as witting servants down long ages after the War of the Ring, disguising the dark ways behind many masks and false traditions that fallen Men were often only too keen to embrace. Even when their grip waned in the East-of-East and in the Uttermost South, the seed of the Master of the Fates of Middle-earth continued to manifest itself in conspiracies of dumb coincidence and petty corruption and the egos of what pass for loremasters in this sorry age, combining to bury and deny all knowledge of the true history of the world. The greatest deceit of the Enemy was in convincing the Free Peoples that he did not exist.

Even the latterday loremasters who dubbed themselves the Inklings were able to reveal only carefully shrouded hints in their literary works without inviting calamity. Translating the Red Book of Westmarch was the greatest victory since the neoplatonic revival of the Renaissance: the 'elvish' power of its words were woven with such subtle magic that they cleaved to the hearts of countless descendents of the Free Peoples.
The forces of darkness have been unable to raise a hand against the book more overtly than through the poo-poohing of literary 'experts', and the creation around it of a genre of bad imitations, seeking to bury the diamond in a rust heap of bad fantasy. The tactic has not been without its successes, but the wisdom contained within the pages of The Lord o the Rings reaches out to the receptive to this day.

Cheers,
--Os.

I always knew I was doomed.

Preach it, Brother Osric!