Failed predictions
|
|
Prediction is hard, especially that of the future. Psychics and would-be prophets often give exact details of what is about to happen and when the day passes, their followers conveniently forgot they ever said anything of the kind, remembering mainly those that happened to come true.
However, would-be psychics are hardly the only people prone to making wrong conclusions — scientists and economists may make inopportune predictions based on faulty data or conservatism.
Science fiction is often set in the future, but is very rarely intended to be an actual prediction of events to come; a timeline of fictional future events is listed elsewhere.
The timeline of unfulfilled Christian Prophecy deals specifically with failed predictions by prophets or leaders within the Christian church, though not any contained within the Bible itself.
Many predictions have been conventionally vague but that is not the case of the following ones:
- 992
- End of the world according to Bernard of Thüringen
- 1524
- February 20 - Worldwide deluge according to German astrologer Johann Stoffler (later moved to 1588)
- 1761
- April 5: destruction of London according to a soldier named Bell
- 1844
- October 22: Believed to be the return of Jesus by the Millerites
- 1882 & 1911
- End of the world according to Scottish astrologer Charles Piazzi Smyth based on the calculations of the great pyramid of Giza
- 1899
- "Everything that can be invented has been invented." - falsely attributed to Charles H. Duell, director of the US Patent Office. This is curiously redolent of the epigram by Sir Max Beerbohm 'Anything that is worth doing has been done frequently; things hitherto undone should be given, I suspect, a wide berth'
- 1914
- End of the world according to Charles Taze Russell
- 1919
- Conjunction of 6 planets would make sun explode, according to meteorologist Albert Porta
- 1925
- End of the World according to Jehovah's Witnesses
- 1928
- May 29 - End of the world according to The Great Pyramid: Its Divine Message by David Davidson and Herbert Aldersmith.
- 1936
- September 6 - End of the world according to George F. Riffel (he later claimed that it had actually predicted the abdication of Edward VIII)
- 1943
- "I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." - Falsely attributed to Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM
- 1953
- August 29 - End of the world according to the 1940 edition of The Great Pyramid: Its Divine Message
- 1955
- "Television will never be a medium of entertainment" (David Sarnoff, the General Manager of RCA corporation)
- 1967
- December 25 - Nuclear holocaust, according to Anders Jensen of Orthon Disciples
- 1977
- "There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home." - Ken Olson, founder and president of Digital Equipment Corporation
- 1981
- Kingdom of Heaven according to the Unification Church (rescinded)
- 1982
- End of the world according to Pat Robertson.
- Jupiter effect, astronomical alignment of planets on the one side of the sun would cause lethal solar flares - according to UK authors John Gribbin and Stephen Plageman
- 1985
- "(by 1985) Machines will be capable of doing any work Man can do." - Herbert Simon, US Nobel laureate
- 1988
- Rapture according to The Late, Great Planet Earth by Hal Lindsey
- 1991
- End of the world (attributed to Mother Shipton)
- 1993
- November 14 or November 24 - End of the world according to Ukrainian White Brotherhood
- 1998
- May 31: Rapture according to evangelist Marilyn Agee
- July 5: X-Day according to the Church of the SubGenius
- 2000
- End of the world according to Jeanne de Roger
- 2003
- May 15: end of the world according to Pana Wave Laboratory (later changed to May 22)