A 100-year summary of the most popular doomsday prophecies
Soothsayers, biblical prophets and futurists have predicted the imminent end of the world since ancient times. The arrival of the "beast", cataclysms, alien attacks, man-made disasters, nuclear war, the fall of meteorites and the invasion of viruses.
RT journalists have collected the main misfortunes that should have already destroyed the earth in the last century.
Viruses
During an extensive epidemic of the "Spanish Flu", or as it was also called the "Purple Death", in 1918, almost a third of the world's population was infected with it. According to various sources, that flu epidemic killed between 20 and 60 million people. Everyone was accused of spreading it - from German spies and Bolsheviks, to Masons and anarchists. Then humanity was predicted to completely disappear. Despite the forecasts, the epidemic ended on its own in 1919.
After the "Spanish Woman", mankind was "infected" with virus-phobia - every now and then fatalists talk about the death of all living things from an epidemic of an unknown virus.
In 1980, we had to disappear due to the vCJD virus, the human form of mad cow disease.
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In 1986 AIDS spread panic.
2003 atypical pneumonia.
2005 - Avian Flu.
In 2009, the pandemic of the Spanish flu, akin to the Spanish flu, took over.
In 2014, the Ebola virus threatened humanity, and since 2015, the Zika virus has been causing panic.
These viruses massively claimed the lives of people, however, none of them so far had the strength to overcome humanity.
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Other false prophets pointed to environmental and environmental problems.
At first, world experts vied with each other to point out pesticides that would cause the death of nature and an epidemic of human cancer.
In the 70s, the planet was supposed to be empty from air pollution. At the same time, all of us had to burn the ozone holes.
The 80s were marked by claims of acid rains killing all life.
Lack of resources
Another division of fatalists was convinced that humanity would fall after exhausting all natural resources. Back in 1970, Harrison Brown, a member of the National Academy of Sciences, announced that by 1992 the planet would have run out of tin, zinc, lead, silver, and gold. The same fate is still prophesied for oil and gas.
Hunger
“In the 1970s, humanity will starve and hundreds of millions of people will starve to death,” ecologist Paul Ehrlich wrote in 1968. Such predictions have been sounding for decades, but hunger still does not come.
Numbers
Since 2000, about 30 frightening prophecies have been associated. Parades of planets, nuclear wars and so on.
One of the most interesting is the "computer doomsday". Many were convinced that the night between December 31, 1999 and January 1, 2000 would plunge into chaos. It was argued that computers will not be able to rebuild: at midnight, computers all over the world will decide that instead of 2000, 1900 has come and will reset all data. However, the hardware and software developers have foreseen everything.
In 2006, religious people were waiting for the biblical Apocalypse, because in June the date turned into the "number of the beast" - 06.06.06.
The science
In 2008, the public was frightened by the upcoming launch of the Large Hadron Collider. They promised that due to the collision of particles in the "pipe" a black hole will appear, which will simply "suck" the planet. People really believed in this prospect, and even the European Court received official demands to ban the launch of a particle accelerator.
One of the most famous physicists of the planet Stephen Hawking also predicted his Armageddon - he predicted the arrival of aliens on Earth, who would take our resources.
Calendars
The Mayan calendar ended on December 21, 2012. Based on their beliefs, humanity has already experienced four "Suns" - cycles, each of which ended with the destruction of all living things. The fifth ended in 2012.
What's in store for us?
Space explorers have repeatedly promised catastrophes from meteor showers and comets. They also have forecasts for the future.
On April 13, 2029 at 4:36 am GMT, the asteroid Apophis is promised to fall to earth. It will weigh 50 million tons, fly at a speed of 45 thousand kilometers per hour and will contain the power of 65 thousand atomic bombs.
If this time the trouble passes, the next such asteroid will arrive on earth on March 16, 2880.