Predicted End of the World May 21 Just the Latest Unlikely Apocalypse

COMMENTARY | When May 21, 2011, comes and goes, either we will have witnessed another crazy prediction about the End pass, or most of us will be scratching our heads, wondering where the Christian fundamentalists went when they vanished in front of us.

Harold Camping, who has made the prediction before and been wrong, is spreading the word through his disciples that Judgment Day will occur May 21, according to Examiner. Those not taken away to an imagined heaven will suffer for five months until the planet is destroyed Oct. 21. Sounds like we are in for a fun summer.

While it's easy to laugh at the idiocy, far too many people take such nonsense seriously. If it's like any of the other predictions of the end, there will be some people who discard every remnant of their life, and are shell-shocked by reality when nothing happens.

What are some other notable Judgment Days that have come and gone?

1284: Pope Innocent III declared in 1213 that the world would end in 1284, 666 years after the founding of Islam. While of course it didn't, the prediction was used as propaganda to help stir up support for Crusades against Islam.

Feb. 24, 1524: When in 1499 Johannes Stoeffler, a respected academic and adviser to royalty, predicted the world would end in a catastrophic flood on Feb. 24 of that year, people took note. As the day grew nigh, more than 100 publications were circulating around the Christian world talking about it. People abandoned their homes and took to the hills or to boats they stocked with supplies.

In London, an elevated fortress was constructed and stocked with two months of provisions. On the European mainland, a German count had a three-story luxury ark built for friends and family. Just like in the Noah myth, crowds gathered, many mocking him - then it started to rain.

The crowd went into a panic, and hundreds were killed in the stampede toward the ark and other boats. When the count refused to let anyone on his ark, he was dragged from the boat and stoned to death.

April 1843: William Miller, a fundamentalist American preacher, predicted the Second Coming for April 1843, with followers of Christ ascending to heaven on Oct. 23, 1844. His followers became known as the Millerites, and thousands of them made preparations as the time drew near.

Some dressed in white robes and climbed hills to be closer to heaven when the time came. When it didn't happen, Miller changed the dates, saying he made a calculation error. After a couple of more misses, most stopped listening to him.

May 19, 1910: "YOU ARE NOW IN THE COMET'S TAIL, FEAR NOT," screamed a headline across the front page of the The Times Newspaper of Hammond, Indiana printed on May 18, 1910. "If this is the last edition of THE TIMES we wish you a fond farewell," the paper continued.

Speculation had been swirling around the world for months that life would end if the Earth passed through the tail of Halley's Comet. They were wrong, but there was one prediction surrounding Halley's Comet that did come true that year.

Mark Twain was born in 1835 as the comet was making an appearance. Knowing it would be around again in 1910, Twain made a prediction in 1909, according to TwainQuotes.com:

"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. The Almighty has said, no doubt: 'Now here are these two unaccountable freaks; they came in together, they must go out together.'"

Although the Earth didn't pass through the tail until May, the comet itself made its closest pass on April 20, 1910. Twain died the next day.