A Few Words on Yesterday's End of the World

OK great! Lets “start with an earthquake, birds and snakes, and aeroplanes…” It may be the end of the world as we know but I for one feel.. pretty secure about it. According to Harold Camping, the biblical Judgment Day from the Book of Revelations passed invisibly on May 21, 2011, which means the end of the world was slated for October 21. Camping’s widely publicized doomsday scenario involves natural disasters, the sun being drawn closer to the Earth, and the righteous ascending to heaven. So if you are reading this after October 21st, hello fellow unbaptised heathen!

Eschatology is the study of the end of the world. For centuries individuals have predicted and prepared for the end of the known world. In fact, people have been hypothesizing the end of time since the beginning of time. An Assyrian tablet from 2800 BCE is translated as, “Our earth is degenerate in these latter days. There are signs that the world is speedily coming to an end. Bribery and corruption are common.”

Pieter Brueghel, The Triumph of Death; Source: Wikipedia

It is said that every generation believes it is the last generation, and perhaps no generation embraced that belief more than those living in early 14th century Europe. When the Bubonic Plague traveled west on the Silk Road and hit central Europe, one third of the population was wiped out. If that wasn’t bleak enough, I will add that plague survivors huddled in churches preparing for the end.

There have been thousands of guesses as to when the world will end, many involve comets, specific planetary alignments, messages from God, biblical translations, and Y2K, to name a few. One such guess was that the end would come on October 22, 1844 and is referred to as the “Great Disappointment.” Followers of William Miller, a Baptist preacher, claimed that Jesus would return on that date to liberate the righteous. Thousands of believers gifted all their possessions and relocated to wait with Miller for the end, which as we know, never came. That is a great disappointment — depending on your perspective.

Hieronymus Bosch, The Last Judgment; Source: Wikipedia

The 1910 end of the world panic was brought on, not by religious fanaticism, but by astronomer Camille Flammarion. Flammarion claimed that when Halley’s comet made its pass by Earth, the gas “would impregnate the atmosphere and possibly snuff out all life on the planet.” People rushed to their local snake-oil salesmen to purchase “anti-comet pills” and special reinforced umbrellas. The return of Haley’s comet did not prove fatal for Earth, but unfortunately one related prophecy proved true. Mark Twain is quoted as saying, “I came in with Halley’s comet in 1835. It is coming again next year, and I expect to go out with it. It will be the greatest disappointment of my life if I don’t go out with Halley’s comet.” Twain died on April 21, 1910, the day after Halley’s comet reached perihelion.

If you are reading this, October 21, 2011 proved not to be humankind’s collective last day on the planet but I, for one, am going to be as virtuous as a girl scout in anticipation of December 21, 2012. On that date, the Mayan Long Count Calendar comes to the end of a 5,126 year cycle and resets to zero. Interestingly, this is also the date that some astrologers believe the sun will align with the center of the Milky Way for the first time in 26,000 years. In some corners it is believed that this allignment will somehow create a gravitational connection with the supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy and wreak havoc here on Earth. Read more predictions for 2012 on wikipedia.