Many people claim to be privy to the day the world will end and yet it seems that has not been possible in any era so far:
The Day and Hour Unknown
36"No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son,[a] but only the Father. 37As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. 38For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; 39and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. 40Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other left. 41Two women will be grinding with a hand mill; one will be taken and the other left. (Matthew 24:36-41)
Here is a page which lists 21 failed endtime predictions just from the 1990’s alone:
ReligiousTolerance.org by the Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance
Many more predictions, along with specific dates of the end of times, have been made in the past which never came to fruition. The predictions of endtimes appear to increase in certain periods. They seem to be cyclical in nature and probably coincide with rapid changes in societal structures such as the change from an agrarian to an industrial manufacturing society or perhaps from the rather rapid environmental changes at the start of an Ice Age, warm temperatures to cold along with reduced food sources and the resulting famines. This sort of sharp, quick change often triggers fear which is fear of the unknown. Currently mankind seems to be at the edge of another great change in structuring business, agriculture and governments. Rather than relying on the manufacuring industry both the developed world and the less developed world are relying more on information industry, the service industry (rather than manufacturing) and industrial farming (rather than small family farms) to support its peoples. I believe this is triggering fear of the unknown. This time mass worldwide communication (radio, television, internet, telephones, newspapers) is involved in the change, thereby vastly increasing the speed of an already rapid change. This creates a series of conflicting belief systems about the future which may or may not have any basis in reality.