We hate to be the bearers of bad news, but none of us will live to see if Star Trek comes true. The seven Star Trek television series and thirteen Star Trek motion pictures take place between the 22nd and 24th centuries. OK, Gene Roddenberry taught us to think more optimisically, so perhaps some medical advancement or whole brain emulation will allow us to witness those years.

At the very least, most of us will get to see some historic dates in the Star Trek universe. In the hundreds of Trek episodes, we learn of several milestones in the 21st century. Who knows, perhaps Trek writers are some kind of collective Nostradamus.

To put that theory to the test, we're going to catalog some of the important happenings in the upcoming half century. Bookmark this page and check back in a few decades to see how much came true.

1 2018: Dax is born We begin in the very near future, this very year, albeit on a planet far away — Trill. The M-class (that's Earth-like for you non-Trekkers) planet featured two prime species in a symbiotic relationship. The worm-ish Trill symbionts lived inside the humanoids. Most notable of these aliens to fans was Jadzia Dax, the eighth host of the Dax symbiont. Lil' Dax was born in 2018, so bake a cake!

2 2019: Buck Bokai joins the Planetary Baseball League Baseball fans are in for a big surprise. The global Planetary Baseball League will soon exist, becoming a bigger league than the "Big Leagues." California native Buck Bokai makes the jump from the MLB to PBL in 2019, and quickly becomes the Babe Ruth of this century. The switch-hitting shortstop crushes balls and records while playing for the Crenshaw Monarchs, the Gotham City Bats (Does that mean Batman exists in the Trek universe? Anyway…) and the London Kings. In 2026 he breaks Joe DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak record — a record once though unbreakable.

3 2024: Ireland reunifies In the TNG episode "The High Ground," Data and Picard debate the effectiveness of violence for politcal gain. Data drops a piece of history in his argument, pointing out that Ireland eventually reunified in 2024. That little tidbit in the script caused a stir in the U.K., where countless people had suffered through "The Troubles." The BBC originally banned the episode, and later cut out the line. It was eventually aired unedited in 2007 on BBC2.

4 2026–2053: World War III People have been fretting about WWIII for… oh, half a century or so. According to Star Trek, we still have about a decade to go, though the cause of the long conflict is rather unexpected. The genesis of the war is due to genetic enhancement. Approximately 600 million people perish in the war. In the first episode of TNG, we see Q dressed as one of the soldiers from the conflict.

5 2032: Manned mission to Mars At last, we reach the Red Planet in 2032. The Ares IV command module, piloted by Lieutenant John Kelly, orbits Mars while two astronauts, Rose Kumagawa and Andrei Novakovich, explore the surface. Oh, and a bit more baseball news on a side note: The Yankees win the World Series.

6 2033: The American flag gets two new stars As we learn from Riker in the TNG episode "The Royale," our American flag earns a couple new stars — as, presumably, our countries gains two new states — in 2033. This flag remains in use until 2079, when we either gain more new states or fracture.

7 2040: The end of television Thanks for giving Heroes & Icons a head's up, Data. In "The Neutral Zone," the android points out that TV as a medium died heading into the fifth decade of the 21st century. "That form of entertainment [television] did not last much beyond the year 2040," he notes. Well, on Earth. As we see in "Bread and Circuses" on the Original Series, TV is alive and well (okay, maybe not "well") in the 23rd century on the planet 892-IV.

8 2047: Los Angeles falls into the Pacific Ocean More bad news. In 2047, the "Hermosa Quake" will ravage Southern California, sending the City of Angels under 200 meters of water. So we learn in the Voyager episode, "Future's End." Silver lining? The submerged city does become a coral reef teeming with sea life.