"In the Year 2525 (Exordium & Terminus)" is a 1969 hit song by the American pop-rock duo of Zager and Evans. It reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 for six weeks commencing July 12, 1969. It peaked at number one in the UK Singles Chart for three weeks in August and September that year. The song was written and composed by Rick Evans in 1964 and originally released on a small regional record label (Truth Records) in 1968. It was later picked up by RCA Records. Zager and Evans disbanded in 1971. Zager and Evans were a one-hit wonder, never releasing another charting single. This occurred in both the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 and the UK Singles Chart and , they are the only recording artists ever to have a chart-topping number one hit on both sides of the Atlantic and never have another charting single in the US or the UK for the rest of their career. Their follow-up single on RCA Victor, "Mr. Turnkey", reached number 48 in the Canadian pop charts and number 41 in the Canadian AC chart. Another single, "Listen to the People", managed to make the bottom slot of the Cashbox chart at number 100 and number 96 in Canada. Summary "In the Year 2525" opens with an introductory verse explaining that if mankind has survived to that point, they would witness the subsequent events in the song. The following verses jump the story approximately with 1000-year intervals, specifically 3535, 4545, 5555, 6565, 7510, 8510 and finally 9595. In each succeeding millennium, life becomes increasingly sedentary and automated: thoughts are pre-programmed into pills for people to consume, eyes, teeth, and limbs all lose their purposes due to machines replacing their functions, and marriage becomes obsolete because children are conceived in test tubes. The song ends after 10,000 years. By that time, humans have finally become extinct. But the narrator notes that somewhere 'so very far away', possibly in an alternative universe, the scenarios told in the song have still yet to play out, as the song repeats from the top (but in the same key, tone, and speed as the previous verse) and the recording fades out. The overriding theme, of a world doomed by its passive acquiescence to and over dependence on its own overdone technologies, struck a resonant chord in millions of people around the world in the late 1960s.