The Apocalypse, Armageddon, Ragnarok, Judgment Day, Doomsday. Come on, the Happy End of the World. Such an event has been an obsession for almost all cultures and religions on Earth, which is why many have predicted it throughout the ages. In this article, we are going to compile 21 predictions of the Apocalypse that, fortunately, have already expired. Seers, mad scientists, the Antichrist, meteorites, pre-Columbian cultures, prophets, the rise of machines, sects, plagues, enlightened… everything, like in an apothecary.
Millennialism
When? : January 1, 1000
Who?: Pope Sylvester II
The era of Jesus Christ was to last only 1,000 years. Then clean slate. And they didn’t say it was crazy enlightened. The Pope of Rome himself said it.
These predictions sparked chaos across Europe and large pilgrimages to Jerusalem. In the end, the first day of the new millennium, a bit of a hangover and little else.
(Almost) A thousand years later, Fernando Arrabal, in one of the most bizarre and brilliant moments of television in Spain, brought the term back into fashion. Balls. already .
The mystical nativity
When? : 1504
Who? : Sandro Botticelli
In 1500 the mythical Renaissance artist Sandro Botticelli painted an oil on canvas depicting the birth of Jesus Christ. You know, the manager, the ox, the little shepherds… and references to the Book of Revelation in its upper inscription:
The experts concluded that Botticelli announced the End of the World in 1504. 1504 passed and nothing but the painting can be enjoyed at the National Gallery in London.
The germanic deluge
When? : February 20, 1524
Who? : Johannes Stoeffler
The friend Johannes Stöeffler was a German mathematician and astronomer who in 1499, based on a large number of planetary conjunctions under the sign of Pisces (all very scientific), announced to great fanfare the End of the World in 1524 due to a universal flood.
The thing went viral (everything viral that could be done in the Middle Ages, of course) and many arks and boats were built all over Europe in the years before the prediction. How could it be otherwise, 1524 was a year of persistent drought and Stöeffler lost all credibility as a prophet.
Columbus, by profession a prophet
When? : 1658
Who? : Christopher Columbus
In addition to being a sailor, discoverer, and conqueror, Christopher Columbus was very fond of esotericism and making his movies by reading the Bible. In his last years of life, he wrote a book entitled the ‘Book of Prophecies’ where he came to say that the discovery of America was nothing more than another sign of God’s plan that would culminate in 1656 or 1658 with the second coming of Christ and the end of the world (and the beginning of a new one).
Columbus had already been dead for 150 years, so he could not witness that Christ did not appear when he had predicted.
Second advent shaker
When? : 1792 – 1794
Who? : the shakers
The Shakers are the followers of a Quaker splinter religious movement called the United Society of Believers in the Second Appearance of Christ. Obviously, with that name, they have predicted the arrival of Christ and the Apocalypse many times. The first two were in 1792 and 1794.
Faced with these prediction failures, they began to relax their prophetic activity. To this day, this religious group, a pioneer in gender equality and adamant against marriage and the family unit, resists in rural New England.
The “big disappointment”
When? : April 28, 1843
Who? : Millerite Movement
William Miller was an American Baptist minister who is considered by many to be the father of Adventism. His followers numbered in the thousands and called themselves Milleristas (like the believers but in a nineteenth-century style).
The good shepherd was obsessed with the second arrival of Christ and, therefore, with the Apocalypse. He predicted it for April 28, 1843…then for December 31, 1843…then for March 21, 1844. He predicted it for between March 21, 1843, and March 21, 1944. Then for April 18 and, after this date, for October 22, 1844. So many fiascoes made the Millerists feel cheated and abandoned him forming other movements like the Seventh Day Adventists but it will be better if we do not advance events.
Halley’s Comet (I)
When? : April 20, 1910
Who? : Camille Flammarion
Every 74 or 79 years the orbit of Halley’s comet brings it closer to Earth and for a few hours, it is visible to the human eye. In his 1910 appearance, the hitherto prestigious French astronomer Camille Flammarion predicted that the toxic gases from the comet’s tail would enter the Earth’s atmosphere and kill all human life.
Sales of gas masks and so-called “comet pills” that made you immune to gases were tremendous all over the world. Then came April 20, there was a nice show and everything ran its course .
Helter-skelter
When? : 1969
Who? : Charles Manson
On New Year’s Eve, 1968 Charles Manson gathered his Family and finally revealed to them what he had discovered by studying the Book of Revelations and listening to the Beatles’ ‘White Album’, especially the song ‘Helter Skelter’ (and we imagine that taking a lot of drugs): in 1969 a racial war between blacks and whites was going to start that was going to get out of hand and end the human race.
For this, it was necessary that they, The Family, commit a series of murders that would light the fuse. Sharon Tate, the LaBiancas, and four other people were killed on August 9 and 10, but no doomsday war happened . Instead Manson and company ended up with their bones in jail and their names in popular culture.
Bonus: Here‘s how Manson came to his crazy conclusions.
The Jupiter Effect
When? : March 10, 1982
Who? : John Gribbin, Stephen Plageman
In 1974, these two astrophysicists published a popular book called “The Jupiter Effect” in which they claimed that the alignment of the planets scheduled for March 10, 1982, would be catastrophic and that, among other dramas, there would be a great earthquake on the fault of San Andres.
Fortunately, the planets aligned but nothing happened… and luckily, that would have meant that the one who writes this had not been born for days. Terrible for all of you to be left without my unparalleled skills for bad jokes and absurd comparisons.
Halley’s Comet (II)
When? : April 29, 1986
Who? : Leland Jensen
Halley’s Comet returned to appear on Earth in 1986. By then many had already prophesied or predicted its dire consequences for the planet and its inhabitants. We are left with that of Leland Jensen, leader of a sect that had already predicted a nuclear holocaust for 1980, which ensured that the comet would enter Earth’s orbit and cause great earthquakes and floods that would lead to the end of the world as we know it.
This time not even his disciples seemed to pay much attention to him. It is what has to predict Apocalypse like churros, that you lose credibility.
Thermonuclear war
When? : April 23, 1990
Who?: Elizabeth Clare Prophet
Mrs. Prophet, leader of a church called Universal and Triumphant Church (Lower Modesto), lived up to her last name and prophesied a devastating thermonuclear war for April 1990. She and her followers retreated to a bunker in the Montana woods.
Not at all because, even though the clock of the apocalypse was by then closer to midnight than almost ever, no thermonuclear war started. Given the visionary failure, the church (very belligerent against rock music) almost disappeared.
Harold Camping, the Guinness of Doomsayers
When? : several times between 1994 and 2011
Who? : Harold Camping
Writer and Christian radio host, Harold Camping came to prophesy up to five different dates for Judgment Day. read:
- September 6, 1994
- September 29, 1994
- October 2, 1994
- March 31, 1995
- May 21, 2011
Camping was (because he already died, otherwise he would continue erre erre) a fervent follower of the La Partida theory: a group of people who will be saved from the Apocalypse and who will go up to Heaven with God. For the 2011 event, he prophesied that 200 million people would be from La Partida. Approximately 3% of the world’s population. Sounds like something to me.
The gates of heaven
When? : March 26, 1997
Who? : Marshall Applewhite
Marshall Applewhite, the leader of the Heaven’s Gate sect, claimed that the Hale-Boop comet would end life on Earth and that the only way to escape this Armageddon was to commit suicide, an act with which they would board a giant spaceship that was traveling hidden behind the comet.
Despite the ridiculousness of the approach, Applewhite got 38 other members of his cult beside himself to commit suicide on March 26, 1997, hours before the comet passed. Terrible.
Nostradamus king of terror
When? : 1999
Who? : nostradamus
It is impossible to write an article of this type without mentioning the visionary among visionaries, the Frenchman Michel de Notre Dame. Nostradamus for friends (of the esoteric).
In 1999, just before the turn of the millennium, good Nostradamus wrote one of the most famous prophecies included in the book ‘The Prophecies (sorry for the prophetic redundancy):
In the end, the king of terror did not come and there is no record that Angoulmois, whoever he is, was resurrected. Shame on you, Nostradamus, shame on you.
The eclipse, the MIR, and Paris in flames
When? : August 11, 1999
Who? : Paco Rabanne
The last years of the 20th century, as the turn of the millennium approached, were prolific in predictions of the Apocalypse. One of the most remembered was that of the Spanish couturier living in France Paco Rabanne.
Rabanne, a fan of esotericism and a student of Nostradamus announced that with the eclipse of August 11, 1999, the MIR station was going to fall on Paris and that it would be the beginning of the End of the World. So convinced was he that he withdrew from fashion. However, the MIR continues in orbit and the world, in fits and starts, yes, has followed its course.
The 2000 effect
When? : January 1, 2000
Who? : various doomsayers
In the mid-1990s, computer publications began to be inundated by a theory that the use of only two digits to represent the year in many computer systems was going to cause these systems to go to hell by the turn of the millennium and we would be back. to the Stone Age.
Soon this alleged bug of the 2000 or Y2K effect reached the general press and a certain panic set in among the people. Large companies and governments even had to issue statements indicating that they had done all the necessary tests and that everything was under control.
We will never know what would have happened if the alarm had not been raised, if nothing had happened in the same way, or if we would now find ourselves in loincloths seeking refuge in caves. What we do know are the few effects that this 2000 effect caused .
The LHC and black holes
When? : September 10, 2008
Who? : various doomsayers
The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is a 17-kilometer circumference particle accelerator developed by CERN and located beneath the Alps between France and Switzerland. While it was developing, there were many voices within the same scientific community warning about its danger, even talking about the fact that it could produce black holes that would swallow the Earth and everything nearby.
Even in the Daily Mail, they wondered, with little sensationalism, if we were going to die that Wednesday. In the end, it started up without any problem and thanks to it, among other things, it has been possible to confirm the existence of the Higgs boson .
Mayan Apocalypse
When? : December 21, 2012
Who?: the Mayans (obviously)
The apocalyptic prophecy with the greatest prestige and followers in recent times has been the one supposedly made by the Mayans with their calendar. A calendar that ended on December 21, 2012, and then something else butterfly.
Given this, various scholars began to study (sorry for the redundancy) Mayan writings and found prophecies about violence, climate change, and natural disasters … close to that date.
Come on, it looked good but in the end nothing, as always. December 21 was followed by 22. And besides, the lottery didn’t win us either (at least not me). All wrong.
Rasputin’s Storm
When? : August 23, 2013
Who? : Grigori Rasputin
The priest, mystical man, and adviser to the tsars Grigori Rasputin also predicted in End of the World, would be missing more. According to the Siberian, who is very fond of prophesying, on August 23, 2013, a firestorm “would devour life on Earth and after that life on Earth will die and the silence of the graves will reign on it.” All this is accompanied by Christ again ascending to heaven. Fortunately, we survived that in August of 2013.
The invisible planet
When? : September 23, 2017
Who? : David Meade
Yes, just two weeks ago I had foreseen an apocalypse. Or at least that’s what David Meade, an Australian numerologist and author of the book ‘Planet X, The 2017 Arrival’, believed.
According to Meade, Nibiru, a planet that Russian ufologist Zecharia Sitchin claimed to have discovered by researching Babylonian tablets and that has a solar orbit of 3,600 years, was due to collide with Earth on September 23, 2017. This was because 33 days before there was a total eclipse of the sun and 33 is the magic figure: the age of Christ and the times that God is mentioned in the sacred scriptures.
NASA, to the surprise concern of many, released a statement to deny this fact. NASA, as almost always, was right and here we continue.
So far the apocalypses predicted and expired but there are still many whose date is yet to come, such as the 2038 effect, the prophecies about Elon Musk’s AI, the end of the world predicted by Isaac Newton for 2060 (yes, that Isaac Newton) or the next pass of Halley’s comet… and, given how the patio is, the same thing would have to be asked, please, that some prediction was real, right? That yes, catches me in one of these bunkers.
Sharlene Meriel is an avid gamer with a knack for technology. He has been writing about the latest technologies for the past 5 years. His contribution in technology journalism has been noteworthy. He is also a day trader with interest in the Forex market.
