"In the Year 2525 (Exordium and Terminus)" is a hit song from 1969 by the American pop-rock duo of Dennis Zager and Richard Evans. It reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 for six weeks commencing July 12, 1969. The song was written and composed by Rick Evans in 1964 and originally released on a small regional record label (Truth Records) in 1968. A year later, an Odessa, Texas, radio station popularized the disc, which RCA Records quickly picked up for nationwide distribution. "In the Year 2525" hit six weeks number one spot on the Hot 100 in 1969. Zager & Evans was a Lincoln, Nebraska, rock-pop duo of the late 1960s and early 1970s named after its two members, Denny Zager and Rick Evans. Zager and Evans met at Nebraska Wesleyan University, and they were joined by drummer Danny Schindler (later of the Benders) in the seminal Nebraska band the Eccentrics, until Schindler's tour of Vietnam in 1965. As Zager and Evans, the duo were backed by Mark Dalton, also a Nebraska native, on bass. Their first drummer, Paul Maher, was later replaced by another Nebraskan, Dave Trupp. Trupp and Dalton were also the rhythm section in the popular Liberation Blues Band and backed Evans on some solo demo material prior to Zager and Evans's recording of "In the Year 2525" in 1968. "In the Year 2525", with lyrics by Evans and music by Zager, warned of the dangers of technology, portraying a future in which the human race was destroyed by its own technological and medical innovations. The last stanza of the song suggests mankind undergoes a continuing cycle of birth, death and rebirth.