End of the World, This Year and Every Year After Quiz

Answer: The funniest joke ever written would cause death by laughter

There were far, far too many year 2000 doomsday predictions to list them all here. Many numerologists were disturbed by the repeating 6 possibility, though a more solid 666 as the Number of the Beast had passed in 1998. William Cooper, leader of a militia group in Arizona, made the prediction about the pyramids.

The "Y2K Bug" was a supposed malfunction of electronic dates, which alarmists jumped on as a HUGE disaster. Other predictions for 2000 included planetary alignments shifting, expectation of a star appearing like the one over Jerusalem, massive cosmic disaster, the return of the Antichrist, and others.

Answer: The Bible Student Movement

The Bible Student Movement was founded by Charles Taze Russell, also considered one of he founders of the Jehovah's Witness Movement. Though both groups have predicted many different dates for the end of the world (Among them 1874, 1878, 1881, 1908, 1914, 1916, 1918, 1920, 1941 etc), they have always been peaceful and measured in their response to the possibility. By contrast, Korea's Hyoo Go Sect had to be physically restrained by police on October 28th, 1992 to prevent their mass suicide, and again on October 29th to prevent them killing their leaders.

The Ugandan Movement for the Restoration committed mass suicide in the year 2000, and the Heaven's Gate cult in 1997.

Answer: The measurements of the pyramids

The dimensions of the pyramids at Giza, Smyth thought, were handed down to the Egyptians from the descendants of the Biblical Noah, survivor of the Great Flood. They were supposed to be a coded message detailing the Apocalypse. The Pyramids fascinate a great many people for a great many reasons, but it's pretty amazing how often they're cited in connection to the end of the world.

Answer: NASA Engineer

Whisenant was a NASA Engineer, which made the press sit up and take notice of his Armageddon predictions. He claimed to have deciphered a mathematical formula in the Bible which predicted the end of the world. His background in higher math gave Whisenant a veneer of credibility. He went on to continue predicting the end of the world almost every year for a long time.
NASA, keep in mind, was responsible not only for putting a man on the moon and inventing Teflon, but also for destroying the Mars Lander through faulty calculations.

Answer: Shut down the Large Hadron Supercollider

Many people panicked about the possibility that the Large Hadron Supercollider would create a miniature black hole, which would destroy the entire world (and presumably later the solar system). The lawsuit was defeated on the grounds that the Supercollider was in Switzerland, and American courts had no right to intervene against it.

Answer: 666 years after the rise of Islam

Pope Innocent III was relentless in his war against Islam during his papacy, and encouraged future Crusades against Muslims. By the time of Innocent III's ascent in 1198 there had already been three Crusades, each of which resulted in massive loss of life with no significant positive results.

Innocent III decided to go for more, inciting the Fourth Crusade and preparing for a fifth by the time of his death in 1216.

Answer: Christ is coming

In his book "Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds", Mackay records the extraordinary event. He claims that the people of Leeds went into a frenzy, attending church and repenting of their sins in preparation of the Second Coming. The excitement died down, however, when a man was caught re-inserting eggs with writing on them back into the chicken.

It seems he would write on the shells with corrosive ink, then shove them back inside the unfortunate bird to create the appearance of the miraculous layings.

Answer: Detonation of the first atomic bomb

Some scientists involved in the Manhattan Project had calculated the possibility that a nuclear blast might actually ignite the Earth's atmosphere, destroying all life as we know it. In the fashion of true mad scientists, however, they went ahead and took the risk. After all, the bigger the explosion, the more successful the bomb. Right?

Answer: Good Friday

The collision of these two dates has caused predictions of doom from astrologers in a few different years, and some people believe it was on one such collision that the creation of the world occurred.

Answer: 2001 was the actual start of the new millennium

Though this is a bit pedantic, 2000 was actually the last full year of the Second Millennium AD/CE. People whose predictions had foundered on December 31st, 1999 sometimes just shifted the same prediction to December 31st, 2000 but they were wrong then, too.

Answer: Nostradamus

Nostradamus is probably the most cited of all history's psychics. His prediction for 1999 was, roughly translated:
The year 1999, seventh month,
From the sky will come a great King of Terror.
To bring back to life the great Angolmois,
Before and after Mars to reign by good fortune.
Followers of Nostradamus have twisted his words to mean various things. This particular quatrain has been used as evidence of prediction of the September 11th attacks, Hiroshima, and others.

Answer: True

Predictions of the world's end seem to coalesce around numbers people consider significant. Among those to predict the year 1000 was Pope Sylvester II, who was himself said to be a sorcerer who had constructed a mechanical head he could ask questions of, and receive answers about the future. How cool is that?

Answer: War of the Worlds

Despite warnings played at the beginning and the end of the radio drama, Orson Welles' "War of the Worlds" was so well put together that people believed the bizarre reports they were hearing of an alien attack. The teleplay took the form of a series of news reports interrupting regular music broadcasts.

Answer: Mary Roach

Mary Roach, author of "Stiff", "Spook", and "Bonk", probably believes the world will eventually end, but she has yet to name a specific date. Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell each believed the world would end in the year 2000. Isaac Newton, whose creation of calculus has been irritating high school and college students for centuries, actually wrote more about religion than he did about math. Newton spent much of his life calculating the world's end.

Answer: Changed the date

Camping said it would happen on October 21st of the same year. Unbeknownst to some people, this was not the first time Harold Camping had predicted the Rapture. He had also predicted the apocalyptic event in 1994.

Answer: Sarin gas attack

The Sarin gas attack, which took place in the Tokyo Subway on 20th March, 1995, killed thirteen people and hospitalized more than a thousand. Shoko Asahara, who believed himself to be Jesus Christ reincarnate, predicted the Apocalypse would take place in 1997, and somehow thought the world might be cleansed with toxic gas.

Answer: Six thousand years

By scientific estimates, the Earth is around 4.5 billion years old, and the Universe is about 9 billion years older than that. By strict scriptural interpretation, though, it began around 3760 BCE and will end roughly 2240 CE. Of course, most theologians interpret the use of "day" and "year" in scripture as more of a metaphor, referring to some far greater measure of time.

Answer: True

There seems to be a link between big, round numbers and predictions of Armageddon. Among the predictors to claim the year 500 was Saint Hippolytus, who used as part of his calculations the dimensions of Noah's Ark. Both odd, and oddly familiar.

Answer: 120 years after the founding of Rome

The mythical founding of Rome involved a dispute between the twins Romulus and Remus, over who would be king of the new city-state. One twin each went to a separate hill, and waited a sign from the gods. Six eagles landed on Remus' hill, but as he was running to claim his right of superiority, twelve eagles landed near Romulus.
So twelve eagles times ten years equals 120 years. Some Romans thought it was not only a sign of Romulus' superiority, but also of the time limit for Rome.

Answer: 1666

When a great catastrophe coincides with the Number of the Beast, can predictions of doom be far behind? Huge portions of London were indeed destroyed, and rebuilt. The architect Christopher Wren was very influential in redesigning the destroyed city's churches, maybe even better than they were before.

Answer: Dark Day

A dark fog engulfed the sky at about 10:30 in the morning of 19th May 1780. The darkness lasted so long (the fog did not lift until the following night) that many people believed the end times were upon them. There is no certain cause of the darkness, but it may have been smoke from a forest fire.

Answer: Halloween 2007

Many cult leaders have been accused of similar activities, including David Koresh of the Branch Davidians, Dwight York of the Nuwaubian Nation, and Warren Jeffs has been accused of running a polygamous sect.

Answer: Halley's Comet

Leland Jensen made this prediction, which came on the heels of his failed prediction that World War III would take place in 1980.

Answer: Christians

It was claimed that Christians had started the fire, and that they had run into the streets joyously crying out that the Kingdom of God had arrived. It's thought that Nero trumped up these charges to throw blame away from himself, since he was suspect #1 on the list of arson instigators.

Answer: Violent attack by Snap, Crackle, and Pop

After looking through all the other ludicrous predictions throughout history, hopefully they all look as silly as this one.