How many Times the End of the World was Expected?

Man is head over heels in the fear of Earth’s destruction and this is indicated clearly by the fact that humans have continued to predict the doomsday ever since. Statements from scientists and religious figures are most common. The most interesting thing that came forward in this regard is the prediction of a hen. The form of destruction varies from floods to comets and from fires to earthquakes. Fortunately, none of these disasters occurred and our planet continues to revolve around the Sun. The most popular predictions about the end of the world are:

Prophecy of Leeds’s Hen

This is by far the strangest incident on this list. In 1806, it was reported that a hen is laying eggs with the words ‘Christ is coming’. This news spread like wildfire and people from various parts of England visited that hen. This religious panic did not last long as some doubtful people visited that false prophetess. They performed some research on this issue and realized that the owner of the hen was inscribing these words on the eggs with corrosive ink. Eggs were forced back into the hen to spread the scam. As the truth behind this conspiracy was revealed, everything went back to normal.

2012 Maya Apocalypse

One of the latest theory that got popular among masses of people was that the world will come to its end on 21st December 2012. The first “Great Cycle” of the Maya Long Count calendar was completed on this day and many people considered it the last day of the Earth. The details of this proposition were that an imaginary planet, Nibiru, will collide with our planet and it will bring a lot of catastrophes. This impact would be so huge that the axis of the Earth will be re-aligned. This claim got quite a lot of clientage. Noah’s Ark was made by a Chinese man and a large number of survival kits were sold.

True Way of Hon-Ming Chen

A religious leader from Taiwan, Hon-Ming Chen, initiated a religious movement which had elements from Christianity, Buddhism, Taiwanese religion and conspiracies of UFOs. He announced that God will descend to Earth in a physical form similar to him. He also prophesized the extinction of human race in the coming year. He said that evil spirits will attack with a massive flood and only those who follow him will be saved through cloud-disguised spaceships.

Great Fire of London

This prediction had a lot of superstition involved with it. The Christians of the 17th century were concerned about the year 1666 because 666 is the number of the Beast. Coincidently, that was the year in which the Great Fire of London broke out. All the concern turned into fear for many as they thought that it was the end of the time. This fire did burn down 13000 homes and 87 parish churches but luckily, only 10 people died. Not only that Earth remained intact following this event, it gave birth to the Insurance industry.

Halley’s Comet would be Fatal

Halley’s Comet passes by the Earth every 76 years but it was a common thought, back then, that it would destroy the world in 1910. The theory behind that false claim was that it has come so close that it would destroy the planet either through cyanogen gases it has or through the celestial collision. It was a regular headline in those times that, “Comet May Kill All Earth Life.” It is still debatable that whether the Earth passed through the tail of that comet or not but nothing extraordinary was felt in any part of the world.

Harold Camping’s Numerology

All the predictions made by Harold had some logic behind them. What made them strange was that he made quite a lot of them. He published a book in 1992 under the title ‘1994’. In this book, he reasoned why the world will come to its end somewhere in that year. Out of his 12 predictions, the most popular one was May 21 in 2011. He proposed that this day marks the completion of 7000 years of Biblical flood and it will cause mass destruction on Earth. When nothing happened, he said that his Mathematics was wrong and presented the world with a new date to end which was 21st October 2011.