The End Is Nigh

"Fake News" is nothing new.  Ever since history began we have had serious sounding people offering apparently credible accounts regarding the end of the human race.  Lately we are being bombarded with a new apocalypse almost daily.  The global suicide rate is increasing yearly. More and more people feel helpless and lost and seek the relief of oblivion from a world that feeds us an unending stream of black despair.  The thing is no matter what "new" theory the doomsayer class bring on board it has been done many times in the past.  There have been predictions of comets smashing us, waves washing us away , plagues killing us, Fundamentalists (of all sorts) rising up and smiting us and nuclear annihilation was a certainty when I was young.  So! below we have a brief history of the highlights of the failed predictions since recorded time 

Pre History
One of the world’s oldest religions, Zoroastrianism claims that the end of existence will happen when a comet, called Gochihr, strikes the earth. 

Norse myths say that Ragnarök will be the battle between the gods, killing all but two of the humans, who will then repopulate the earth. (Adam and Eve raising those incestuous kids again?)

1st century CE

Early Christianity: Second Coming and you are all judged by holy Jesus it will happen from around 100 CE up to any day now!  

7th century

Muslims believed in the Qiyamah (Last Judgement) during which time Jesus will come to earth, end all wars, and kill ad-Dajjal — the Muslim anti-Christ. Then every person who ever lived will be bodily resurrected, before being judged by God. The faithful go to heaven, and the rest to hell. Apparently there's also room for a few "People of the Book," i.e. Jews and Christians, look forward to further heavenly Armageddon’s if that happens!

16th century

In 1504: Painter Botticelli (he of the cherubs and buxom ladies) believed he was living during the End Times, according to an inscription on his painting The Mystical Nativity.

1533: Michael Stifel, Judgement Day. A common saying in German for “PIDOOMA” (the acronym for Pulled It Directly Out Of My Ass is to "talk a Stifel."

18th century

1719: Jacob Bernoulli: saw a comet in 1680 he said it would return shortly and collide with the Earth. The Comet hasn't been seen since.

19th century

The Great Disappointment in the Millerite movement was the reaction that followed Baptist preacher William Miller's proclamations that Jesus Christ would return to the Earth in 1844, what he called the Advent. His study of the Daniel 8 prophecy during the Second Great Awakening led him to the conclusion that Daniel’s “cleansing of the sanctuary” would happen on October 22, 1844. But it came and went and they were disappointed.

1865: predicted by Edward Bishop Elliott, a Victorian Biblical scholar; he later revised this to 1941. Still failed!

1881: according to an 1862 edition of the prophecies of Mother Shipton, who allegedly wrote "The world to an end shall come, In eighteen hundred and eighty one."

20th century

1910: Halley's Comet's tail crosses the Earth and people think that the world will be gassed to death by cyanogen gas.

Jehovah witnesses deserve a special mention for being the most special of Fail Masters

1914: Jehovah's Witnesses: Armageddon.

1915: Jehovah's Witnesses: Armageddon.

1918: Jehovah's Witnesses: Armageddon.

1920: Jehovah's Witnesses: Armageddon.

1923: Wilbur Glenn Voliva: Flat Earth to end

1925: Jehovah's Witnesses: Armageddon.

1927: Wilbur Glenn Voliva

1930: Wilbur Glenn Voliva

1934: Wilbur Glenn Voliva

1935: Wilbur Glenn Voliva

1941: Jehovah's Witnesses: Armageddon.

1941: Victorian scholar Edward Bishop Elliott, based on his interpretation of the Book of Revelation, came up with this date after his earlier predictions in the 1860s proved untrue.

1975: Jehovah's Witnesses: Armageddon.

mid-1970s: David Wilkerson: Worldwide economic depression.

1977: William Branham: predicated the destruction of the U.S., termination of all governments into a world government and the Second Coming of Christ.

1977: Pyramidologist Adam Rutherford: Beginning of the Millennium.

1978: Jim Jones took his cult with him and left.

1979-1980: John Todd: Installation of a world government ruled by the Illuminati, with Jimmy Carter as the anti-Christ. Not Jimmy Carter FFS, the last nice guy in American politics

1980: Pat Robertson: "A year of sorrow and bloodshed that will have no end soon, for the world is being torn apart, and my kingdom shall rise from the ruins of it."…NOPE

1981: Hal Lindsey: Pre-tribulation rapture.

1982: Pat Robertson: Great Tribulation.

1982: R.E. McMaster: World War III and/or economic depression, based on cyclical theory. Nope, although the Falklands war kicked off and that was a surprise.

1985: Pat Robertson: Worldwide economic collapse.

1988: Hal Lindsey: Second Coming.

September 11-13, 1988: Edgar Whisenant: Second Coming.

1988: Colin Deal: Second Coming.

1989: Edgar Whisenant: Second Second Coming.

1990: Elizabeth Clare Prophet: Global thermonuclear war. (missed that)

1991: Louis Farrakhan: The looming Gulf War would be the "War of Armageddon which is the final war." (yeah that happened)

1992: Rollen Stewart: Second Coming.

1992: Mission for the Coming Days: Second Coming.

1992: First end of the world prediction from collision with the Pleiades star cluster (a.k.a., "photon belt")

1994: Harold Camping: Second Coming. (bored with all the pornstar first and second comings)

1994: Some Jehovah's Witnesses: Armageddon. (these guys should give up and have some fun)

1997: Heaven's Gate: Earth changes and a UFO abduction coinciding with the Hale-Bopp comet. Mass suicide in the hopes of hitching a ride on said UFOs. (Face Palm)

1997: Jehovah's Witnesses: Armageddon. (still at it)

1998: The Church of the SubGenius: the Rupture. Every year on July 5th, they meet and party in reverence, certain that it will happen this year. (Recent writings have inverted the year to "8661.")

1999: according to some interpretations of Nostradamus

1999: A now little-known collision with Planet X

1999-2000: David Wilkerson: Worldwide economic depression

May 5, 2000: Cataclysmic crust displacement predicted by Richard W. Noone

2000: Y2K: Collapse of civilisation. Christian preachers in Papua New Guinea predicted the end.

Hal Lindsey failed on this one again.

21st century

2001: Cataclysmic displacement of the earths predicted by William Hutton

2003: Mary 2003 was supposed to have Earth cataclysmically smash into Nibiru/Planet X, according to ZetaTalk.

2005-2026: William Strauss and Neil Howe: A crisis period in the U.S. comparable in effect to the American Revolution, Civil War, and Great Depression/WWII. (still waiting)

2007: Hal Lindsey: Second Second Coming. (boring twat)

2007: Pat Robertson: Great Tribulation.

2008 — whenever she dies: Sarah Palin: believes she is of the "Final Generation" and will see the End Times during her lifetime.[citation needed]

2008 — whenever it shuts down: The Large Hadron Collider will destroy the world with black holes, strangelets or something similarly scary and full of nutritious non science.

2009: David Wilkerson: Earth-shattering calamity engulfing the whole megaplex, including areas of New Jersey and Connecticut. Major cities all across America experiencing riots and blazing fires.

2011: Harold Camping tries again: Third Second coming/rapture. May 21st, to be precise. He put up billboards! Later postponed to October 21st, but again nothing came of it. Camping might hold on to the money people sent him if he were not dead now, though he evidently blew a bundle on billboard advertisements.[42] though followers were encouraged to drain their savings for Camping's campaign funds and many are deeply disappointed that they are still alive

2011: Ronald Weinland: Second Coming on the 29th of September. Strike one!

2012: But of course! Lots of movies about what to look forward to when we die horribly in an apocalypse

2012: Ronald Weinland: Second Coming on the 27th of May. Strike two!

2012: Last known end of the world prediction from collision with the Pleiades star cluster

2013: 2012 was just a warm up, the real bad stuff starts 2013 or something and it seems Isaac Newton predicted it.

2013: Ronald Weinland: Second Coming on the 9th of May. Strike three, you're out!

2014 (February 22nd) Ragnarok The end of the present world according to Norse mythology.

2014 (March 21st) Asteroid?

2014: World War III, resurrected Nostradamus prophecy of a fire in the North for the reference of the end of the age of the fifth sun, believed to be a specific Northern region of a country, current speculation is North Korea, as relative to the resolution of a Pope prediction. Oh, and the Rapture. And a giant asteroid hitting the Caribbean.

between April 2014 and October 2015: A tetrad of lunar eclipses (or blood moons) will signal the start of the end times, according to megachurch pastor John Hagee.

Unspecified time during the reign of Pope Francis, the pope succeeding Benedict XVI. Mediaeval Saint Malachy supposedly predicted Peter the Roman (Petrus Romanus) would be the last pope, Rome would be destroyed and a terrible judge would judge his people, The end.[54] Doomsayers have already started fitting up the new pope into the prediction.

2015: Solar flare has killed us all but we don’t know yet.

2015: September 23rd (some references give a margin of September 18th to September 25th) Asteroid.

2015: October 7th. eBible Fellowship, an organisation vaguely related to the late-Harold Camping, is confident they've got the date right this time.

2016: Tom Wattkins: He had a vision of the Great tribulation claiming to have met the beast of revelation, etc. Turns out the same day is a solar eclipse., though of course he'll mention that.

2016: May 16, Pastor Richardo Salazar was allegedly told by God that an asteroid fully made of ice, with a 9km diameter, traveling at 30,000km per hour would strike earth killing 1,200 million people. The funeral would be massive apparently!

2016: June 3-4, Modern scholars got the Mayan date wrong. It was never 2012, rather it was June 2016 and there are plenty of numbers involved, the best numbers

2016: June 14-August 19, according to this super-reliable-super-honest-super-definitely-NOT-bullshitting "NASA scientist", there was meant to be a magnetic reversal between June and August which would cause the Van Allen belt to fall killing 80% of life on Earth. He got this information from aliens via HAARP. Yup, aliens told our good 'ol uncle Dr. Sal that the sky is falling.

2016: October 31st, Walid Shoebat alleges that the world is "100% certain" to end on this exact arbitrary nutjob date. As the basis for this claim, he refers to his own science of "Futurology 101".

2016, Bible student and computer scientist Nora Roth on MarkBeast.com claims as much through a lot of numerology surrounding seventy "sevens".

2016, December: Bible student and computer scientist Nora Roth subsequently revised her claim to December.

Okay, we are still here and so many people are sad and disappointed that we have not been plagued, shot, drowned, smitten or commeted to death that they probably killed themselves.

What further we can look forward to failing

2017, October: Nibiru/Planet X will again collide with Earth, this time according to David Meade.

2017: Various Christians: We'll be chipped, and the Great Tribulation begins.

2017 to 2113: Asteroids.

2018: 24th of June, obscure crank Mathieu Jean-Marc Joseph Rodrigue ensures that doom is upon us, based on some middle school math.

2018: Hal Lindsey: Third Second Coming.

2018: The Bible guarantees May 20 2018 Pentecost

2026: More asteroids.

2028: Fred Clark: A tongue-in-cheek offer guaranteeing 15 years of Bible-prophecy hucksterism for four easy payments of $39.99.

2030: Approximate date of a mass extinction event predicted by Bob Geldof. Myles Allen, of Oxford University claims "Competing hyperbole" are unhelpful in understanding real climate change. [75]

2035: Even more asteroids.

2036: Yet more asteroids.[

2037: Hal Lindsey: First Third Coming.

2038: Deterioration of the fundamental older technology that still underlies the most crucial systems today.

2039: End of life, the universe and everything. Also known as the Ascension.

2040: Yes still more asteroids.

2041: March another asteroid apparently.

What is my point?  Well it is simple, please cheer the fuck up and be nice to each other.  The world is going nowhere, none of us is getting out alive so enjoy the ride.