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"11 End-of-the-World Predictions"- National Geographic
Photograph from AP For followers of radio preacher Harold Camping (pictured in December 2002), doomsday is expected to arrive tomorrow, May 21, 2011. The end-of-the-world prediction is just the latest in a line that stretches back centuries. During the so-called rapture on May 21—said to be Judgment Day—Jesus Christ is predicted to return to Earth to gather the faithful into heaven, according to Camping, the founder of the independent ministry Family Radio Worldwide. (Related: "2012: Six End-of-the-World Myths Debunked.") The 89-year-old retired civil engineer has broadcast prophecies of the May 21 doomsday around the world, and his loosely organized flock has taken to the streets to spread the word. However, many in the Christian mainstream don't buy it, according to the Associated PressMay 21: Doomsday?
Pompeii: Precursor to End of World?
Artwork by Peter V. Bianchi, National Geographic Stock
Just as some people believe a Maya calendar pinpoints 2012 as year of the end of the world as we know it, some ancient Romans saw the A.D. 79 eruption of Mount Vesuvius, which buried Pompeii (pictured), as a sign of the end of the world. (See "2012 Prophecies Sparking Real Fears, Suicide Warnings.")
That's because Roman philosopher Seneca, who died in A.D. 65, had predicted the Earth would go up in smoke: "All we see and admire today will burn in the universal fire that ushers in a new, just, happy world," he said, according to the 1999 book Apocalypses.
Artwork from Getty Images/Bridgeman Art Library Knowing that the Bible describes 666 as the ominous Number of the Beast, many Christian Europeans entered the year 1666 with trepidation. A prolonged plague that had wiped out much of London's populace in 1665 didn't help assuage fears, and when the Great Fire of London (pictured) occurred, many believed Judgment Day had come. Some Londoners saw the fire as "dreadful judgment—God's wrath visited at last on a sinful Earth," according to the 2002 book The Great Fire of London: In That Apocalyptic Year, 1666. Artwork courtesy Library of Congress The appearance of Halley's comet—seen from Earth every 76 years—has been seen as an omen of the end of the world throughout history. The comet's impending arrival in 1910, for instance, stirred apocalyptic hysteria among Europeans and Americans (pictured, a French cartoon ridiculing the doomsayers). Some believed that the comet's tail contained a gas "that would impregnate the atmosphere and possibly snuff out all life on the planet," according to French astronomer Camille Flammarion, as quoted in the bookApocalypses. Some profited from the panic: Sales of masks and "comet pills" skyrocketed, as did oxygen supplies, especially in Rome, where people hoped to keep themselves alive on bottled air until Earth passed through the comet's tail, the book said. Photograph by Joel Sartore, National Geographic Stock Since its founding in the 1870s, the Jehovah's Witnesses, a Christian offshoot, had prophesied the end of the world in 1914 (pictured: Jehovah's Witness children hand out religious literature in an undated photo). Though doomsday didn't arrive in 1914, ever since then, the religion's followers have been predicting that the world will end "shortly," according to the 1997 bookApocalypse Delayed: The Story of Jehovah's Witnesses. Photograph by Your Shot user Benjamin Cooper The moon and Venus join together in a conjunction over the Ponce Inlet Lighthouse in Florida on February 27, 2009. Such planetary alignments have inspired many doomsday forecasts, particularly around the May 5, 2000, conjunction, when Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn lined up with the sun and the moon. Author Richard Noone predicted ice would overtake the world (see eighth photo) as a result of the alignment. And "psychic archaeologist" Jeffrey Goodman asserted in his 1977 book We Are the Earthquake Generation that "quakes and volcanoes [will be] set off around the world and a rift [will] open up as the Earth splits in several places to relieve the stress produced by the shift," New Scientistreported. (See related picture: "Venus, Jupiter, Moon Smile on Earth.") But doom and gloom can also spark scientific innovation, as occurred in 1774 in Friesland, the Netherlands. A vicar hoping to boost his congregation circulated a "little book of doom" that said the solar system would be demolished during an upcoming conjunction, according to New Scientist. As townspeople's panic grew, an amateur astronomer built a planetarium in his living room to allay concerns and explain the true movements of the planets—now the oldest working mechanical planetarium in the world. Photograph by Gene J. Puskar, AP Decades before Harold Camping's May 21, 2011, prediction, TV evangelist Pat Robertson (pictured in 2000) had preached that, sometime in the 1980s, Jesus would return to Earth. Robertson's rapture forecast was based on writings in the Bible, specifically I Thessalonians, which states: "For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ shall rise first; then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air," according to The Atlantic. Under this doomsday scenario, unbelievers and Satan will be trapped in a lake of fire, where they will be tormented day and night forever, the Atlantic said. Fire will also destroy Earth and replace it with a new heaven and Earth, where believers—or the redeemed—will live, the story goes. Photograph by Alastair Grant, AP Pictured over Stonehenge, the extremely bright comet Hale-Bopp, which was discovered in 1995, and sparked tragedy when it last buzzed Earth in 1997. Thirty-nine people, part of a religious group called Heaven's Gate, committed suicide in California when the comet was at its closest. The group believed that a UFO riding the comet's wake would rescue them from a doomed Earth. The followers thought that Lucifer controlled the Earth and that humans "were about to perish in apocalyptic flames," according to the book Apocalypses. Photograph by Paul Nicklen, National Geographic Stock In his 1997 book Ice: The Ultimate Disaster, author Richard Noone predicted that on May 5, 2000, the planets would perfectly align—and bring about the end of the world by sending melting ice barreling toward Earth's Equator (pictured, Norway's Austfonna ice cap). Noone argued in the book that Earth's previous axis shifts had coincided with tremendous climatic changes—such as ice ages—and that such "almost unimaginable results" would happen again. No such calamity occurred, and many scientists are now concerned about ice for another reason: Warming temperatures are gradually causing the world's frozen regions to melt away. Photograph by Steve Liss, Time Life Pictures/Getty Images The Head family displays survival supplies meant to carry the family through the supposed millennium apocalypse caused by the Y2K computer bug. A 1984 computer-trade column first warned of the end of the world occurring on January 1, 2000, the Wall Street Journal reported. A bug caused by a calculation error would cripple computers and other machines and lead to mass chaos, the column said. The column described how to purchase an anti-Y2K amulet and lifesaving Y2K-repair tools, the Journal reported. Evangelicals also recommended that their followers stockpile food and prepare for the worst, according to the Washington Post. Such leaders as Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson hinted that the turn of the millennium would bring the rapture, as described in the Bible's Book of Revelation, the Post reported. Photograph courtesy Maximilien Brice, CERN When the Large Hadron Collider fired up in September 2009, some critics speculated that the world's biggest atom smasher could spawn a black holethat would mean the end of the world. A small group of physicists argued that there was a very, very remote chance that a black hole could be created, assume an odd orbit within Earth, and eat up microscopic chunks of matter until the entire planet was gone. This and other harrowing—and equally unlikely—scenarios prompted a couple of independent scientists to sue in spring 2008 to stop the atom smasher. However, the concern was for naught: the collider has been working without disastrous consequences.1666: Judgment by Fire?
Comet Apocalypse
Jehovah's Witnesses' Doomsday Dilemma
Planetary Alignments: Doomsday Omens?
Robertson's Rapture
Hale-Boppalypse
Death by Ice
Y2K Judgment Day?
Human-made Black Hole?
