Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - A History of the End of the World

Starting point is 00:00:00 Over the centuries, there has been a host of self-proclaimed prophets, astrologers, scientists, and cranks who have predicted the end of the world. Some of them have been extremely precise in when they predicted the world would end. But, spoiler, to date, none of the end of the world predictions have come true. Learn more about end of the world predictions and how people who believed it reacted when it didn't happen on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. What if your perceptions about the past were wrong? throughline is a podcast that takes you back in time to uncover the parts of the story that may have gone unnoticed. It effectively turned day into night. And how it shaped the world now.

Starting point is 00:00:53 Time travel with us every week on the Thurline podcast from NPR. The history of the end of the world goes back about 2,000 years to the beginning of Christianity, although early Christians were certainly not the only group who engaged in apocalyptic predictions. What is meant by the end of the world or the apocalypse can vary from person to person. It could mean the literal destruction of the earth, or it might mean some religious revelation, or, as is more common nowadays, the visitation of aliens. Even if the person making the prediction doesn't literally mean the end of all life on Earth, they are almost certainly referring to something happening,

Starting point is 00:01:32 which would be the end of the world as we know it. Cue the REM music. To be fair, the end of the world as we know it certainly did happen to many people in history. in very localized cases. If a city was sacked by Gingas Khan, for example, it might very well have been the end of the world for them. Most of the predictions that I'll be talking about were religious in nature. All three of the main Abrahamic religions, Christianity, Islam, and Judaism have some sort of apocalyptic tradition. In Christianity, it comes from the Book of Revelations. In Islam, it can be found in the Hadith, and in Judaism it can be found in

Starting point is 00:02:05 the Talmud. The word apocalypse has come to mean a cataclysm or catastrophe in English. However, However, in the original Greek, the word simply means a revelation. In early versions of the Bible, the book of revelations is actually called the book of the apocalypse. In the Coptic Orthodox Church, the evening of Good Friday is known as Apocalypse Night. Some of the earliest apocalyptic predictions came from an early Christian sect known as the Gnostics. The Gnostics were a heretical sect that appeared in the first century. They borrowed liberally in their theology from early Christianity and Judaism, and they believed that the return of Jesus was imminent. not at some indefinite point in the future, but it could happen at any time.

Starting point is 00:02:44 The return of Jesus wasn't going to be measured in centuries, but just in a few years. While the Gnostics were one of the first groups, predictions of the end of the world became a regular event that popped up every so often. It would be literally impossible to discuss every apocalyptic prediction, so I'm going to try to limit the discussion to either major predictions, which garnered a lot of attention, or very specific predictions. One of the first predictions which tried to nail down the end of the world to a particular day was a bishop in what is today Portugal by the name of Hyatius. Hydecius lived in a time and place where the Roman Empire had gone and chaos reigned. His prediction for the end of the world came from the Gospel of Thomas, which was one of the apocryphal books of the Bible.

Starting point is 00:03:22 And those are the books of the Bible that basically didn't make the cut because they couldn't be authenticated. Hydaecious predicted the return of Jesus and the end of the world on May 27, 482. He actually died in 469, so he wasn't around to know if his prediction came true. Another early specific prediction came from a monk known as Baitis of Libana, who lived in what is today northern Spain. He wrote treaties called the Commentary on the Apocalypse in 776, where he predicted the end of the world would come on April 6, 793. On March 25, 970, the feast of the enunciation fell on Good Friday. There were several theologians that believed that this was the date the world was created, so they figured that this must be the day that the world would end.

Starting point is 00:04:05 The year 1000 was a big time for end of the world predictions. Everyone was concerned about Y1K because of a line in the book of revelations that said, quote, After a thousand years have passed, Satan released from his prison, will leave to seduce the nations of the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, and as numerous as the sands of the sea to muster them for war, end quote. So naturally, many people thought that the 1,000 years would come due in the year 1,000. The problem was, when you remember back to my episode on the calendar, no one shared the same date for the beginning of the year. A monk by the name of Joachim of Fiore was one of the biggest apocalyptic thinkers of the Middle Ages.

Starting point is 00:04:43 He predicted that the world would end between the year 1200 and 1260. He died in 1202, but he spawned a group known as the Yokomites, who continued his apocalyptic predictions. When his prediction didn't come true, his followers moved it back to 1290, and then 1335. Another notable apocalyptic prediction occurred on February 1st, 1524. A group of astrologers in England predicted that the world would end on this date by a flood, which would start in London. An estimated 20,000 people actually fled the city of London in anticipation of the flood. When their prediction didn't come true, the same astrologers changed the date to February 1st, 1624, 100 years later, when they would safely not be there to see it happen.

Starting point is 00:05:25 The German astronomer Johannes Stoffler said that the world would end just 19 days later on February 20th, because there was a planetary alignment in the constellation of Pisces. With the Protestant Reformation, a whole new wave of apocalyptic predictions occurred. Anabaptist reformer Hans Hutt predicted the world would end on May 27, 1528. The mathematician and theologian, Michael Stifle, made a very specific prediction that the world would end at 8 a.m. on October 19, 1533. But maybe the best prediction was that of Jan Mathis, who led the Anabaptist Munster rebellion in Germany. He predicted the end would come on April 5, 1534.

Starting point is 00:06:04 On that day, he and his followers led a procession from the city when he was captured and beheaded. So, in a way, his prediction did sort of come true, at least for him. The 17th century saw tons more prophecies about the end of the world. A special note are two people whom you might know for other things. Christopher Columbus actually published a book called The Book of Prophecies, where he predicted the world would end in the year 1656. Likewise, Isaac Newton also predicted the apocalypse. I've mentioned Newton on many episodes about how he basically created the foundations of modern physics, invented calculus, and inadvertently created the gold standard. What I have not mentioned so far is that most of his life was actually spent trying to decipher the Bible and turning lead into gold, not engaged in actual science or method.

Starting point is 00:06:51 Maddox, which he did when he was younger. His apocalyptic prediction was set well into the future. He said it would occur in the year, 2060. The prophetess Joanna Southcott claimed that she was pregnant with the new Messiah at the age of 64. She predicted the world would end on October 19, 1814. The world did not end, and she herself died just two months later, and an autopsy showed that she was not pregnant. One of the greatest apocalyptic predictions, and one of the ones we have the most

Starting point is 00:07:20 information on occurred in the 19th century. An American Baptist preacher by the name of William Miller established a religious movement known as Millerism. Miller, after extensive study of the Bible, concluded that the end would come on October 22, 18, after previously predicting April 18th. Thousands of people were gathered in Millerite churches around the country. When the day came and went, it became known as the Great Disappointment. Millerite churches were vandalized and one group in Toronto were actually tard and feathered. religious predictions of the end of the world kept popping up over the years. The 20th century saw a new breed of doomsayer, the paranormal prophet.

Starting point is 00:07:59 Charles Piazzi Smith, who was an Italian Scottish astronomer, predicted that the apocalypse would come between 1892 and 1911. And he came to this conclusion by studying the Great Pyramid of Giza. It's hard to even track all of the end-world predictions in the 20th century. It seems that every year somebody was predicting the apocalypse. One notable prediction was made by a woman by the name of Dorothy Mee. Martin. She was the leader of a UFO cult called the Brotherhood of the Seven Rays. She predicted flooding would destroy the Earth on December 21, 1954. And this is notable for being the first apocalyptic prediction from a UFO cult. The astrologer Gene Dixon predicted a planetary

Starting point is 00:08:37 alignment would destroy the world on February 4, 1962. The American mystic Elizabeth Claire Prophet said a nuclear war would start in April 23, 1990, with the end of the world happening 12 years later. She died in 2009. The predictions around this time were also very religiously inclusive. The rabbi, Manaka Mendel Schneerson, predicted that the Messiah would return on September 9th, 1991. Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan said that the Gulf War was the War of Armageddon, which would be the final war. One of the most tragic predictions occurred on March 26, 1997, when 38 members of the Heaven's Gate cult killed themselves, thinking a UFO in the Hail Bob Comet would pick them up if they died. The year 2000 saw a flood of End of the World predictions, both religious and technological.

Starting point is 00:09:23 The predictions kept coming, however. Grigory Rasputin, the advisor to Tsar Nicholas II, predicted back in 1916 that the end of the world would come by fire on August 23, 2013. A self-proclaimed conspiratorial astronomer who goes by the pseudonym David Mead predicted that the Earth would be destroyed by a planetary object known as Nieburo in 2017, and then updated it to April 23, 2018. Gene Dixon, who I previously mentioned, modified her prediction when she got it wrong in 1962 and moved it to the year 2020, which if you lived through 2020, I guess you kind of have to give her partial points. There are some future predictions which are of a totally different nature. These are predictions of the world ending in about 300,000 years due to a nearby supernova and gamma ray burst, or a million years due to supervolcanism, or 600 to 800 to 800 million years due to the brightening of the sun, and 1 to 4 billion years when the sun turns into a red giant. So with all these predictions, and again, I barely scratched the surface, what happens to all of the people who believe this stuff when the predictions didn't come true?

Starting point is 00:10:27 There was a book published in 1956 called When Prophecy Fails, which studied the 1954 end-of-the-world prediction from the Brotherhood of the Seven Rays UFO cult. The researchers pretended to be a part of the cult so they could see firsthand how the members reacted when the prediction didn't come true. They dubbed the phenomenon disconfirmed expectancy. What they found was similar to what happened to the Millerites in the 19th century, and almost every other movement that predicted the apocalypse. A few members left, but most stayed on and simply adjusted their views to explain what happened. Perhaps they got the date wrong, or perhaps there was divine intervention that prevented

Starting point is 00:11:03 it from happening. Not only did most people stick with the group, but most of them were more fervent in their beliefs than they were before. Despite the sheer volume of failed end-of-the-world predictions and how easily falsifiable such a prediction is, such predictions keep getting made and some people keep believing them. In fact, we'll probably keep seeing predictions for the end of the world until someone finally gets it right. Everything Everywhere Daily is an Airwave Media podcast. The executive producer is Darcy Adams. The associate producers are Thor Thompson and Peter Bennett.

Starting point is 00:11:37 Today's review comes from listener Savio Wong over at Podchaser. He writes, fantastic podcast. Gary has the uncanny ability to distill any topic into a concise, informative, and easy to follow 9 to 10 minute podcast. And when I say any topic, I do mean any topic. As of today, Gary has done over 600 episodes. From the history of barbecue to the Apollo space program, from the Istanbul Canal, to the survivorship bias. One never knows what will be next. As a proud member of the I have listened to every episode club, I am honored to rate this podcast, the highest rating on any scale. Thanks, Savio.

Starting point is 00:12:13 If I may paraphrase Forscump, this podcast is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're going to get. Remember, if you leave a review or send me a boostogram, you too can have it read on the show.

Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - A History of the End of the World

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