Berlitz's 1999 Doomsday(01 of08)
Open Image ModalLanguage tycoon Charles Berlitz suggested that the world would end in 1999, although he wasn't sure how.
He speculated that it might involve nuclear devastation, asteroid impact, pole shift or other earth changes. (credit:Toronto Star Archives via Getty Images)
Y2K: The rise of the machines(02 of08)
Open Image ModalThis worldwide armageddon phenomenon struck ahead of the millenium, causing governments and companies across the world to assess their computer systems for potential bugs.
Although many thought Y2K was a computer virus that would cause machines to rise up and kill their creators á la Terminator, it was actually a consideration of the date systems used in computers. Some manufacturers had failed to use the full year dating system, so most aging tech at the time considered the year to be 99 instead of 1999. Worried that the machines would malfunction and be rendered useless or vulnerable when they ticked over to 00, the world population strived to rectify the issue.And it definitely didn't result in planes falling out of the sky or microwaves trying to kill their human masters, which is good. (credit:AP)
Armageddon is coming, aliens told me(03 of08)
Open Image ModalThe House of Yahweh prophecy(04 of08)
Open Image ModalYisrayl Hawkins, founder and pastor at The House of Yahweh, predicted the world would end as the result of a nuclear war which would start of September 12th, 2006.
After the bombs failed to drop, Hawkins published his book Birth Of the Nuclear Baby: The Explosion Of Sin, in which he claimed the nuclear war HAD started on his prophesied date but the launch of nuclear weapons was yet to occur. (credit:AP)
The Harold Camping quintuple apocalypse(05 of08)
Open Image ModalAfter already wrongly predicting armageddon three times in 1994 and once in 1995, in 2011 Harold Camping of the Family Stations Ministry stated that the Rapture would occur on May 21st and this would be followed by the end of the world 5 months later.
Reuters camped outside the preacher's house on the eve of ascension, only to see him emerge "flabbergasted" on the 22nd.
The next day, Camping revised his prediction and said that the faithful would ascend to heaven on the same day as the Earth's destruction, October 21st.
Needless to say, that didn't happen. (credit:Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP)
"The end of the world will give us superpowers"(06 of08)
Open Image ModalJosé Luis de Jesús, self-proclaimed reincarnation of Jesus Christ and the Antichrist, believed that he and the members of his Creciendo en Gracia sect would be able to fly and walk through walls following the fall of the world's economies and governments on June 30th 2012.
The Floridian's outlandish claims were overshadowed, however, by the sheer virality of the Mayan 2012 prophecy. (credit:Miami Herald via Getty Images)
The end of the Mayan calendar(07 of08)
Open Image ModalPrompting a disaster film titled 2012 and various History channel "documentaries", the end of the ancient Mayan calendar was widely believed to be an omen of the end of the world.
Despite NASA scientists saying nothing would happen, believers thought the world would be struck by an asteroid or some other interplanetary object on December 21st 2012.
It wasn't. (credit:AP)
The inevitable gloomy death of everything(08 of08)
Open Image ModalIt is estimated that in the 3×1041st century, all nucleons in the observable universe will decay causing any remaining life in existence to evaporate entirely.
This is known as the Total Existence Failure of the universe, and it doesn't sound very pleasant at all.
That is, if we avoid the galaxy Andromeda colliding with ours in the 40 millionth century. (credit:Shutterstock)