 2012 Maya Apocalypse

Madrid CodexCourtesy of the Museo de America, Madrid

December 21, 2012, marked the end of the first “Great Cycle” of the Maya
Long Count calendar. Many misinterpreted this to mean an absolute end to
the calendar, which tracked time continuously from a date 5,125 years earlier,
and doomsday predictions emerged. End-of-the-world scenarios included the
Earth colliding with an imaginary planet called Nibiru, giant solar flares, a
planetary alignment that would cause massive tidal catastrophes, and a
realignment of Earth’s axis. Preparations for the end of the world as we know
it included a modern-day Noah’s ark built by a man in China and extensive
sales of survival kits.
 Harold Camping

solar X-raysG.L. Slater and G.A. Linford; S.L. Freeland; the Yohkoh Project
Among the most prolific modern predictors of end times, Harold Camping has
publicly predicted the end of the world as many as 12 times based his
interpretations of biblical numerology. In 1992, he published a book,
ominously titled 1994?, which predicted the end of the world sometime
around that year. Perhaps his most high-profile predication was for May 21,
2011, a date that he calculated to be exactly 7,000 years after the Biblical
flood. When that date passed without incident, he declared his math to be off
and pushed back the end of the world to October 21, 2011.
 True Way

Taiwanese religious leader Hon-Ming Chen established Chen Tao, or True

Way, a religious movement that blended elements of Christianity, Buddhism,
UFO conspiracy theories, and Taiwanese folk religion. Chen preached that
God would appear on U.S. television channel 18 on March 25, 1988, to
announce that he would descend to Earth the following week in a physical
form identical to Chen. The following year, he prophesized, millions of devil
spirits, together with massive flooding, would result in a mass extinction of
the human population. Followers could be spared by buying their way aboard
spaceships, disguised as clouds, sent to rescue them. 
 Halley’s Comet Panic

Halley's CometNASA/National Space Science Data Center

Halley’s comet passes by the Earth approximately every 76 years, but the
nearness of its approach in 1910 created fear that it would destroy the planet,
either by a celestial collision or through the poisonous gasses it was rumoured
to contain. A worldwide panic ensued, stoked by the media and such
newspaper headlines as “Comet May Kill All Earth Life, Says Scientist.” A
 group in Oklahoma tried to sacrifice a virgin to ward off impending doom, and
bottled air became a hot commodity. The Earth probably did pass through
part of the comet’s tail, but with no apparent effect. 
 Millerism

Religious leader William Miller began preaching in 1831 that the end of the
world as we know it would occur with the second coming of Jesus Christ in
1843. He attracted as many as 100,000 followers who believed that they
would be carried off to heaven when the date arrived. When the 1843
prediction failed to materialize, Miller recalculated and determined that the
world would actually end in 1844. Follower Henry Emmons wrote, “I waited
all Tuesday, and dear Jesus did not come … I lay prostrate for 2 days without
any pain—sick with disappointment.” 
 Joanna Southcott

lightning: cloud-to-ground© Hemera/Thinkstock

Beginning when she was 42 years old, Joanna Southcott reported hearing
voices that predicted future events, including the crop failures and famines of
1799 and 1800. She began publishing her own books and eventually developed
a following of as many as 100,000 believers. In 1813, she announced that in
the following year she would give birth to the second messiah, whose arrival
would signal the last days of the Earth—despite being 64 years old and, as she
told her doctors, a virgin. She died before a baby could be born. 
 The Prophet Hen of Leeds

© Larry Lefever/Grant Heilman Photography, Inc.

In 1806, a domesticated hen in Leeds, England, appeared to lay eggs inscribed
with the message “Christ is coming.” Great numbers of people reportedly
visited the hen and began to despair of the coming Judgment Day. It was soon
discovered, however, that the eggs were not in fact prophetic messages but the
work of their owner, who had been writing on the eggs in corrosive ink and
reinserting them into the poor hen’s body.
 Great Fire of London

Because the Bible calls 666 the number of the Beast, many Christians in 17th-
century Europe feared the end of the world in the year 1666. The Great
London Fire, which lasted from September 2 to September 5 of that year,
destroyed much of the city, including 87 parish churches and about 13,000
houses. Many saw it as a fulfillment of the end of the world prophecy. Given
such a large amount of property damage, though, the death toll of the fire was
remarkably low, reportedly only 10 people--not quite the end of the world.
 The Great Flood

solar systemNASA/JPL
Johannes Stöffler, a respected German mathematician and astrologer,
predicted that a great flood would cover the world on February 25, 1524, when
all of the known planets would be in alignment under Pisces, a water sign.
Hundreds of pamphlets announcing the coming flood were issued and set in
motion a general panic; Count von Iggleheim, a German nobleman, went so
far as to build a three-story ark. Though there was light rain on the day of the
predicted flood, no actual flooding materialized.
 Montanism

Courtesy of the Staatsbibliothek Bamberg, Germany

Montanism, a 2nd century schismatic movement of Christianity, began in
Phrygia (modern Turkey). Based on the visions of Montanus, who claimed to
speak under the influence of the Spirit, Montanists believed the second
coming of Christ to be imminent. Many Christian communities were almost
abandoned when believers left their homes and migrated to a plain between
the two villages of Pepuza and Tymion in Phrygia, where Montanus claimed
the heavenly Jerusalem would descend to Earth.