According to Terminator 2: Judgment Day, the nuclear war launched by Skynet - Judgment Day - was supposed to take place on August 29, 1997.
What I find particularly interesting is that August 29 is also one of the darkest recurring dates in Hungarian history.
For example:
- August 29, 1521 – The fall of Belgrade (Nándorfehérvár).
- August 29, 1526 – The Battle of Mohács, one of the greatest military catastrophes in the history of the Kingdom of Hungary.
- August 29, 1532 – The fall of Kőszeg Castle, supposedly at exactly 11 a.m. (which is why, to this day, the bells of Kőszeg are traditionally rung at 11 a.m.).
- August 29, 1541 – Buda falls into Ottoman hands, an event that effectively sealed Hungary's division into three parts.
- August 29, 1949 – The Soviet Union conducted its first nuclear weapons test, RDS-1, near Semipalatinsk in Kazakhstan.
And this is where the thought experiment begins.
In the Terminator universe, as far as I know, the first film does not explicitly mention the exact date on which Judgment Day would occur. The date of August 29 only becomes clearly established in Terminator 2.
Terminator 2, of course, was produced under Carolco Pictures, where Andrew G. Vajna and Mario Kassar were key figures.
So what do you think: could Andrew G. Vajna's Hungarian background (he borned in 1944 in Budapest and lived in Hungary until the revolution of 1956) have had something to do with August 29 being chosen as the date of Judgment Day - perhaps subconsciously, or maybe even as a subtle inside joke?
Or is this simply an incredibly interesting coincidence?
Especially considering that August 29 really does appear repeatedly throughout Hungarian history as something of a historical "black day."
Does anyone happen to know if there is any background information about how or why that particular date was chosen?
(This post is not intended as a joke. I'm genuinely interested in historical coincidences and possible connections that may exist behind seemingly random dates.)
