As the end of the world is once again nigh, The Economist’s daily chart takes a look at previous doomsday predictions:
IT IS not only wild-eyed prognosticators, in lonely towers with an owl for company, who predict the exact date of the end of the world. It has been marked in the diaries of popes, preachers and reformers. It has shivered the blood of a navigator nearing the edge of the globe, a delicate painter of the rites of spring, a serial killer, and the great brooding scientist who uncovered the secrets of gravity and light.
I’m sure this prediction is right, though.1
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If somehow this bat-shit-crazy prediction comes true, I will not be terribly upset. I will have been born to a loving family, enjoyed the company of friends, received an education, loved a wonderful puppy, and married a loving woman. More importantly, I won’t have to mow the yard again. ↩︎