26th century

The 26th century in the anno Domini or Common Era of the Gregorian calendar will begin on January 1, 2501 and end on December 31, 2600.

Astronomical events

List of the long total solar eclipses

• June 14, 2504: Solar eclipse, (7 min 10 s), of saros 145.
• June 25, 2522: at 9:04 TD, total solar eclipse of 7 min 12 s, "crowning" at the top the series of saros 145.
• July 5, 2540: Solar eclipse, (7 min 04 s), of saros 145.
• July 17, 2558: Solar eclipse, (6 min 43 s), of saros 145.
• August 6, 2567: Solar eclipse, (6 min 26 s), of saros 164.
• August 16, 2585: Solar eclipse, (6 min 16 s), of saros 164.

Particular eclipse prediction

• May 5, 2600: First total solar eclipse visible from London since 2151.
  The width of its path is predicted to be exceptionally wide at its maximum point.

Other phenomena

• April 7, 2515: At 10:37 UTC, Mars will occult Neptune.
• January 25, 2518: At 22:41 UTC, Venus will occult Saturn.
• 2562: The dwarf planet Eris will have completed one orbit of the Sun since its discovery in 2005.
• 2599: Triple conjunction Mars–Jupiter.

Technological predictions

• Physicist Stephen Hawking, at a White House lecture in 1999, remarked that if exponential technological growth continued unabated, by the year 2600, the world's population would be standing shoulder to shoulder and the electricity consumption would make the Earth glow red hot.

In fiction

Literature

• Aldous Huxley's dystopian novel Brave New World is set in 2540.
• The "Fiat Homo" section of A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter Miller takes place in the 26th century.
• Anthony Meredith writes the foreword to the Everhard Manuscript in Jack London's The Iron Heel around this time.
• In the early 26th century, humans make first contact with Pierson's Puppeteers in Larry Niven's Known Space universe.
• In the novel More than Weird by English-Canadian author Martyn Godfrey, a Gynoid named Susie travels from 2537 to 1987 to Dawson Creek to find a human teenager to take to the future to put him in a human zoo.
• Most of the events of the novel Revelation Space take place in 2566 with flashbacks to 2524 and earlier centuries.
• Bernice Summerfield, a character created in Doctor Who novels and later spun off into her own range of novels and audio dramas, was born in 2540, and published an archaeological book, Down Among the Dead Men, in 2566.
• Nevil Kingston-Brown, an Australian physicist in H. P. Lovecraft's "The Shadow Out of Time", will die in 2518.

Film

• In the film Aditya 369, the protagonists reach a post-apocalyptic world on 5 April 2504. It is revealed that most of the world was destroyed in World War III and the surface of the Earth is not suitable for humans.
• The third and final portion of Darren Aronofsky's film The Fountain takes place in the 26th century with future astronaut Tom Verde, played by Hugh Jackman.
• The film Idiocracy, in which an average man (played by Luke Wilson) from 2005 is suspended in hibernation and wakes up 500 years later, is set in 2505.
• The film Serenity is set in 2517, and follow Space Captain and Unification War veteran, Malcolm Reynolds, and his crew, across various planets.
• The film Alita: Battle Angel based on the manga Battle Angel Alita is set in 2563.

Television

• The TV show Cleopatra 2525 is set in 2525. (The theme song for the show is a parody of the song "In the Year 2525", mingled with the sound effects of futuristic weaponry.)
• The TV show Firefly is set in 2517, and follow Space Captain and Unification War veteran, Malcolm Reynolds, and his crew, across various planets.
• The eighth season of Mystery Science Theater 3000 is set in 2525. According to the show, 2525 is the year in which Earth is destroyed.
• The Doctor Who serial Earthshock, featuring the hijacking of a space freighter by Cybermen, is set largely in the year 2526.
• The Doctor Who serials Frontier in Space and Planet of the Daleks take place in 2540.
• In the South Park episode "Go God Go", Eric Cartman freezes himself because he is too impatient to wait three weeks for the release of the Wii video game console. He is accidentally left frozen until 2546.
• In the Star Trek: Enterprise episode "Azati Prime", Captain Jonathan Archer is briefly transported to a possible future 26th century (in the Star Trek universe) in which Klingon and Xindi crewmen serve the United Federation of Planets. Archer visits a possible version of USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-J).
• The Planet of the Apes episode "Escape from Tomorrow" features a history book with a photograph of New York City in 2503.
• The Medabots series are set in the 26th century.
• Miles from Tomorrowland is set in 2551.
• The Tom and Jerry episode "Guided Mouse-ille" takes place in 2565.

Games

• The Halo series is set mostly in the 26th century.
  • Halo: Combat Evolved, Halo 2, Halo 3, Halo 3: ODST & Halo: Reach take place between 2552 and 2553; the prequel Halo Wars takes place in 2531. Halo 4 takes place in 2557. Halo 5: Guardians takes place in 2558. Halo Wars 2 takes place in 2559. Halo Infinite takes place sometime in 2560.
• In R-Type Final the bonus ending features the player being sent from 2164 to 2501.
• The video game Bulletstorm is set in this century.
• The Dead Space game series takes place in the early 26th century, with "Dead Space" taking place in 2508, "Dead Space 2" in 2511 and "Dead Space 3" in 2514.
• The Xbox video game Dino Crisis 3 is set in a spaceship in 2548.
• The Nintendo 64 game F-Zero X and the Nintendo GameCube game F-Zero GX take place in an unspecified year in the 26th century. However, in the Game Boy Advance game F-Zero GP Legend, it is stated that the game takes place in 2201.
• The StarCraft series is set within the early 26th century.
• The NES game Super Spy Hunter takes place in 2525.
• The computer game Tachyon: The Fringe takes place in the 26th century, as stated by Commander Alberion Obulo in the intro.
• In the Xenosaga universe, 2510 is the year that the worldwide organization in charge of the space emigration plan changes the dating system from "A.D." to "T.C."
• The top-down 2D Role-playing video game Space Station 13 takes place in 2560. This year, however, changes with the current year in real life.
• The SNES game F-Zero takes place in 2560.
• One possible alternative future for the tabletop role-playing game Mutants & Masterminds is set in Freedom City in 2525.

Comics

• Battle Angel Alita (Gunm) is set during this century.

Music

• "In the Year 2525", a 1969 song by Zager and Evans, describes what life is like in 2525 (and later 3535, 4545 and many others). Disturbing predictions are given for each selected year.
• "Pretty Good Looking", a song by the White Stripes on their album "De Stijl", references the Zager and Evans song with the line "This feeling's still gonna linger on/until the year 2525 now."