Top apocalypse predictions that obviously didn’t happen
I’m sure we’re all eagerly awaiting the end of the world, what with all the John Cusack movies on the topic. While you bite your nails in expectance of the tidal waves and dramatic sprinting that we’ll all have to deal with soon, here’s some reading material to remind you that this isn’t the first — or the last — time that people will cry apocalypse.
Pretty much all the time in 1843 and 1844: “The Great Disappointment”
In 1818, a preacher named William Miller became convinced that his thorough research of the Bible had shown him that the world was going to end in 1843. He spent four years checking and re-checking his calculation. In 1822, he went public with his declaration that the world would end between March 21, 1843 and March 21, 1844. His following grew to thousands of people, with some even doing their own calculations. March 21, 1844 came and went with no incident, so Miller pushed the date to April 18, 1844. One of his followers calculated that the end of the world would actually be on October 22, 1844. Needless to say, none of those dates happened to bring the end of the world, and the “Millerism movement” fizzled and died.
March 10, 1982: The Jupiter Effect
This was the day in modern history when all the planets were on the same side of the sun. The theory began with the 1974 publication of the book The Jupiter Effect, written by John Gribbin, Ph.D., and Stephen Plagemann. This was supposed to cause earthquakes, hurricanes, tsunamis — pretty much all the natural disasters possible. It didn’t. In fact, in 1999, Dr. Gribbin published another book, The Little Book of Science, in which he admitted that he was embarrassed that his name had ever been attached to the Jupiter Effect
January 1, 2000: The Y2K Bug
Most of us will remember this one. Before Facebook, Twitter, and adequate memory space, computer software used two digit codes to represent the year. This worked fine and dandy until software experts realized that “00” could be read as “1900,” instead of the “2000” it was meant to represent. The main industry to be affected by this would be the financial world, as calculations of the differences between years could end up being negatives. It was expected that everything would crash, and of course, when the banks are affected, so is the world. Midnight struck on Jan. 1, 2000 and nothing happened. Nowadays, we know better; our more worldly generation would just tweet the shit out of #Y2Kbug.
June 6, 2006: The Antichrist
The sixth day of the sixth month of 2006 is written out as 6/6/06, or the number of the Antichrist. A plethora of religious sects were convinced that the Antichrist would appear, and that the world as we know it would end. I don’t know if he — or she, for the sake of equality — showed up on June 6 and is just hanging tight somewhere, but the world still looks the same from here, so this must have been yet another false alarm.
May 21, 2011: “The Rapture”
Eighty-nine-year-old radio preacher Harold Camping announced to the world that this would be the date of the Rapture, or the Biblical ending where God visits Earth, smites the sinners, and saves the believers. The day came and went, with sinners and believers alike remaining untouched. Camping immediately came up with several theories as to why we were still standing, including that God was good and, not wanting us to suffer, was just going to drop by on Oct. 21 and efficiently do it all in one go, rather than dragging it out for several months as earlier theorized. From what I recall, Oct. 21, 2011 wasn’t that eventful either, so it seems like this was a fluke too.
December 21/23, 2012
Yeah, we’ve all heard this one. Some of us scoff at it, some of us look at every conspiracy theorist forum out there, and some of us are skeptical but interested. The premise — for those inhabitants of Under a Rock — is that the Mayans made a Long Count calendar, and this was the last date on that calendar. Possible theories of opponents include that they ran out of space, or didn’t predict their own demise, so they thought they’d be having more publication opportunities for their calendar. But I digress. The whole Mayan phenomenon is aggravated by the prediction of several other events that seem apocalyptic — though in all likelihood, we won’t even notice them when they happen — and have given birth to further theories regarding the end of the world. These include a collision with Planet X (or Nibiru), and a geomagnetic reversal that will allegedly trigger a solar flare with the energy of 100 billion atomic bombs.
The year 3797
Michel de Nostredame (commonly known as “Nostradamus”) was a 16th century apothecary and seer who published collections of prophecies. His works have been interpreted to have foretold events such as Hitler’s rise to power, the dropping of the atomic bombs, and Princess Diana’s death. He once wrote to his son, however, that the Prophecies cover March 1, 1555 until the year 3797. The fact that this reputable prophet ends his writings at that point has led many to believe that this is the actual end of the world. This being said, most of us have trouble planning far enough in the future to not have to cram our essays in one night, let alone a time well out of our lifetimes; I, for one, am not too concerned about this prediction.
