The Mammoth Book of Losers
Page 48
In the meantime, Bockelson told his followers that God had told him that men could now take multiple wives and that women must, under penalty of death, submit to whichever men chose them. Leading by example, Bockelson took sixteen wives and used a pegboard system to keep track of which one he was supposed to be sleeping with each night. He tore down church steeples, communized all property, issued coins bearing his likeness and generally made life in his new Christian state a living hell for everyone except for himself and a few fellow Anabaptists, who lived very lavishly. Bockelson’s reign in Munster ended in a bloody siege in 1535 when troops nailed his genitals to the city gates.
2. According to Christian tradition, the number 666 is the “mark of the beast” in the Bible’s Book of Revelation.6 So it was no surprise that many Europeans approached the beastly-numbered year 1666 with some trepidation. Of course, it didn’t help when, the preceding year, a plague wiped out about a fifth of London’s population. Then, on 2 September 1666, a fire broke out in a bakery on London’s Pudding Lane. As the fire spread for three days, London looked literally hellish, as more than 13,000 buildings and tens of thousands of homes burned. In total, fewer than ten people died in the blaze, which was bad news for the families concerned but not the end of the world. In fact, the year 1666 later become known as the “annus mirabilis” – year of miracles – because some people chose to interpret the absence of even greater disaster as a miraculous intervention by God. So God wins either way.
3. After several years of careful study of the Bible, in 1831 an American farmer, William Miller, announced that Jesus Christ would return for the long-awaited Second Coming and that Earth would be engulfed in fire sometime between 21 March 1843 and 21 March 1844. As Judgment Day drew nearer, Miller steadily gained followers and, by 1840, the United States was firmly in the grip of Millerism. Over the next four years, around 100,000 people sold their belongings and took to the mountains to wait for the end.
When 21 March 1844 came and went, Miller revised the date to 18 April 1844. When the world survived this date unscathed as well, he admitted he had made a mistake, but the end of the world was definitely nigh – he just wasn’t sure how nigh exactly. Then one of his loyal followers, Samuel S. Snow, double-checked Miller’s numbers and arrived at a different date: it was not March or April but 22 October 1844. When the fateful day came and went without any supernatural incident, 22 October became known to Millerites as “The Great Disappointment of 1844”, although it was slightly better news for the rest us, the world not having ended. The Millerites disbanded but a few of them went and formed the Seventh-Day Adventist movement.
4. The appearance of Halley’s comet, which is seen from Earth every seventy-six years, has been causing panic throughout history. The comet’s impending arrival in 1910 caused the biggest reaction of all. Initially, thanks to extensive newspaper coverage, it was eagerly awaited by the general public, but while most reporters turned to astronomers to get their facts straight, the tabloid press stirred apocalyptic hysteria by claiming that there was danger of a celestial collision with Earth; and even if we escaped a direct hit, it was reported that the comet’s tail contained poisonous cyanide gases that would impregnate the atmosphere and snuff out all life on the planet.
During the evening of 18 May 1910, some people took precautions by sealing the chimneys, windows and doors of their houses; others confessed to crimes they had committed because they did not expect to survive the night; and a few panic-stricken people actually committed suicide. In the event, the Earth’s orbit carried it through the end of the comet’s twenty-four-million-mile-long tail, unscathed, for six hours on 19 May. Some people did quite well from the panic: sales of masks and “comet pills” rocketed, as did oxygen supplies, as people hoped to keep themselves alive on bottled air until Earth passed through the danger.
5. The onset of the First World War was a scary time for most people, but it was especially significant for the Zion’s Watch Tower Tract Society – or, as we know them, Jehovah’s Witnesses. The society’s founder, Charles Taze Russell, had previously predicted the end of the world in 1873. When nothing happened on the appointed day, he postponed it to 1874. When the new deadline passed with little sign of an apocalypse, Russell announced that the Second Coming had actually taken place as planned – it was just that Christ was here, but invisible. The actual end of the world – that is, the one we would all be able to see for ourselves – would come in 1914. This gave Russell and his followers a full forty-year breather to carry on with their mission of saving lost souls without being further embarrassed by their own predictions.
When the First World War broke out that year, Russell interpreted it as a sign of Armageddon and the upcoming end of days or, as he called it, the end of “Gentile times”. The war was bad enough, but people couldn’t help noticing that the world had not yet ended. After Russell’s death in 1916, his followers continued to push back the fateful day, first to 1917, then 1925. From the mid-1930s to early 1940s, pamphlets said it was “months away”. Later, another delay was effected until 5 September 1975. Ever since then, the cult’s followers have been predicting that the world will end “shortly”.
6. The American media mogul and TV evangelist Pat Robertson has had little success with his apocalyptic predictions. In late 1976, Robertson predicted that the end of the world was coming in October or November 1982. In a May 1980 TV broadcast, he repeated his prediction: “I guarantee you, by the end of 1982, there is going to be a judgment on the world.”
In May 2006, after receiving another revelation from God, Robertson declared that a tsunami would hit America’s coastline sometime later that year. The following January, Robertson said that God had told him to expect “mass killings” in 2007 by way of a terrorist attack on the United States. He elaborated, “The Lord didn’t say nuclear. But I do believe it will be something like that.”
When the terrorist attack failed to materialize, Robertson explained, “All I can think is that somehow the people of God prayed and God in his mercy spared us.” In 2011, Robertson incorrectly predicted several more dates for the end of world and was jointly awarded an “Ig Nobel Prize” for “teaching the world to be careful when making mathematical assumptions and calculations”. Robertson countered, “I have a relatively good track record. Sometimes I miss.”
7. The Christian writer Hal Lindsey did more than just predict the end the world; he popularized a whole new literary genre. His book, Late Great Planet Earth, the best-selling non-fiction book of the 1970s, predicted that the world would end sometime before 31 December 1988. Lindsey cited a host of world events as proof, including nuclear war, the communist threat and the restoration of Israel.
His follow-up book, The 1980s: Countdown to Armageddon, was less specific, implying that the battle of Armageddon would take place in the not-too-distant future and “the decade of the 1980s could very well be the last decade of history as we know it” adding that the US could be “destroyed by a surprise Soviet nuclear attack”. The book was taken out of print in the early 1990s.
His next effort, Planet Earth – 2000 AD, stated that Christians should not plan to still be on Earth by the year 2000. Lindsey’s apocalyptic vision did not come to pass, but he still has much to answer for. Edgar Whisenant published a book in 1988 called 88 Reasons Why the Rapture Will Be in 1988 which sold 4.5 million copies. Whisenant was quietly confident, saying, “Only if the Bible is in error am I wrong.”
When 1989 rolled around, Whisenant published another book claiming that the Rapture would occur that year instead. It didn’t sell as well, and neither did later titles that predicted the world would end in 1993 and again in 1994.
8. Edgar Cayce was known as the “American Nostradamus” or “the sleeping prophet” after his habit of going into a trance to predict the future or heal the sick. Although Cayce’s track record on the predictions front was generally so erratic that he was obliged to keep up his day job selling photographic supplies, he had one notable success ju
st before the 1929 Wall Street Crash when he advised a client against investing in the stock market because he saw “a downward movement of long duration”.
Cayce is also said to have foreseen the First and Second World Wars, the independence of India, the state of Israel and the assassination of President Kennedy. He also predicted the fall of Communism in China, California’s collapse into the Pacific Ocean in 1969 and the return of Christ after a Third World War in 1999 and the Earth’s and mankind’s total destruction by flooding and earthquakes in 2000. His hopeful followers, the Association for Research and Enlightenment, keep his memory alive from their base at his former home in Virginia.
9. In 2011, Christian radio host and serial alarmist Harold Camping picked 21 May as the date of the Rapture. “Beyond the shadow of a doubt,” he said. Confirming his reputation for moving in mysterious ways, God refused to stick to this itinerary. Camping recalculated and shifted his prediction to 21 October.
It wasn’t the first time Camping had had trouble with his maths. In 1992, he published a book called 1994?, which proclaimed that Christ would return and the world would end in mid-September 1994. He based his calculations on numbers and dates found in the Bible and was “99.9 per cent certain” that he was correct. But the world did not end in 1994, not even on 31 March 1995, another date Camping provided when September 1994 passed without incident.
In 2012, Camping announced his retirement from end-of-the-world predictions. “I’m like the boy who cried wolf again and again, and the wolf didn’t come,” he told the press, “but this doesn’t bother me in the slightest.”
10. By the standards of ancient peoples, the Maya of pre-Columbian America were technologically backward. They lacked the wheel, the arch, the plough and domesticated animals. They did, however, build mightily impressive temples and monuments and made astronomical observations. They were also totally obsessed with measuring time. The Maya had several calendars, including one known as the Long Count, counting forwards from the date of the creation of the world – 8 September 3114 BC, according to the Maya. Their biggest unit of time was not a year or a century but the 144,000-day B’ak’tun.
Although Mayan glyphs and hieroglyphs aren’t very clear about what the mysterious calendar means, it has become of enormous interest to astrologers/Internet rumour-mongers who believe that the Maya could predict the future, including the date when the world will end. Because the number thirteen was significant for the Maya, many believed that the thirteenth B’ak’tun – on the 21 or 23 December 2012 – would herald the end of the world. Scenarios suggested for the apocalyptic moment included the arrival of a huge solar flare, or Earth’s collision with a black hole or a passing asteroid, or with a planet called “Nibiru”. But while the Mayan prophets were busy predicting what would happen in the far distant future, did they foresee their own collapse in the ninth century? Or the coming of Cortéz and the imminent cataclysmic Spanish invasion?
No, they didn’t.
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1 As far as Mrs Attlee was concerned, Boaks may have had a point. TIME magazine once described her as “a terrible driver who should never have been allowed on a public highway . . . [it was] almost as certain as fog that she would have a traffic accident every so often.”
2 Or so it was widely rumoured. Fauré’s supporters later claimed that his political opponents made the bit up about the blowjob.
3 Inspiring the poet Richard Osborne to write:
“Great Empedocles, that ardent soul;
Leapt into Etna, and was roasted whole.”
4 Or, ironically as it turned out, the Sandwich Islands, as he preferred to call it after his patron the Earl of Sandwich.
5 Still not quite in the same league as the French explorer Alexander Debaize, who reached the African town Ujiji in 1878 packing twenty-four umbrellas, two suits of armour and a portable organ.
6 In Revelation 13:18 it is written: “Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is six hundred threescore and six.” Anything associated with that number was known to be pure evil. A devout Puritan in London would have been shitting himself.
Appendix I
Harry Stephen Keeler Bibliography
The Voice of the Seven Sparrows (London: Hutchinson & Co., 1924); (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1928)
Find the Clock: A Detective Mystery of Newspaper Life (London: Hutchinson & Co., 1925); (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1927)
The Spectacles of Mr Cagliostro (London: Hutchinson & Co., 1926); (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1929)
Sing Sing Nights (London: Hutchinson & Co., 1927); (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1928)
The Amazing Web (London: Ward, Lock & Co., 1929); (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1930)
Thieves’ Nights: The Chronicles of Delancey, King of Thieves (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1929); (London: Ward, Lock & Co., 1930)
The Fourth King (London: Ward, Lock & Co., 1929); (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1930)
The Green Jade Hand (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1930); (London: Ward, Lock & Co., 1930)
The Riddle of the Yellow Zuri (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1930); (London: Ward, Lock & Co., 1931)
The Matilda Hunter Murder (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1931); (London: Ward, Lock & Co., 1931)
The Box from Japan (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1932); (London: Ward, Lock & Co., 1933)
The Washington Square Enigma (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1933); (London: Ward, Lock & Co., 1933)
The Crilly Court Mystery (London: Ward, Lock & Co., 1933); (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1933)
Behind That Mask (London: Ward, Lock & Co., 1933); (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1938)
The Fiddling Cracksman (London: Ward, Lock & Co., 1934); (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1934)
The Riddle of the Traveling Skull (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1934); (London: Ward, Lock & Co., 1934)
Ten Hours (London: Ward, Lock & Co., 1934); (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1935)
The Five Silver Buddhas (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1935); (London: Ward, Lock & Co., 1935)
The Marceau Case (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1936); (London: Ward, Lock & Co., 1936)
X. Jones of Scotland Yard (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1936); (London: Ward, Lock & Co., 1936)
The Wonderful Scheme of Christopher Thorne (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1937); (London: Ward, Lock & Co., 1937)
The Defrauded Yeggman (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1937)
The Mysterious Mr I (London: Ward, Lock & Co., 1937); (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1938)
10 Hours (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1937)
When Thief Meets Thief (London: Ward, Lock & Co., 1938)
Finger! Finger! (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1938)
Cheung, Detective (London: Ward, Lock & Co., 1938); (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1939)
The Chameleon (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1939)
Find Actor Hart (London: Ward, Lock & Co., 1939); (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1940)
The Man with the Magic Eardrums (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1939); (London: Ward, Lock & Co., 1939)
The Crimson Box (London: Ward, Lock & Co., 1940); (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1940)
Cleopatra’s Tears (London: Ward, Lock & Co., 1940); (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1940)
The Wooden Spectacles (London: Ward, Lock & Co., 1941); (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1941)
The Peacock Fan (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1941); (London: Ward, Lock & Co., 1942)
The Sharkskin Book (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1941); (London: Ward, Lock & Co., 1948 – as By Third Degree)
The Vanishing Gold Truck (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1941); (London: Ward, Lock & Co., 1942)
The Lavender Gripsack (London: Ward, Lock & Co., 1941); (New York: Phoenix Press, 1944)
The Bottle with the Green Wax Seal (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1942)
The Book with the Orange Leaves (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1942); (London: Ward, Lock & Co., 1943)
The Case of the Two Strange Ladies (New York: Phoenix Press, 1943); (London: Ward, Lock & Co., 1945)
The Search for X-Y
-Z (London: Ward, Lock & Co., 1943); (New York: Phoenix Press, 1945)
The Iron Ring (London: Ward, Lock & Co., 1944); (New York: Phoenix Press, 1945)
The Case of the 16 Beans (New York: Phoenix Press, 1944); (London: Ward, Lock & Co., 1945)
The Case of the Canny Killer (New York: Phoenix Press, 1946); (London: Ward, Lock & Co., 1946 – as Murder in the Mills)
The Monocled Monster (London: Ward, Lock & Co., 1947); (Madrid: Instituto Editorial Reus, 1955 – as El caso Jaarvik)
El caso del reloj ladrador: Mezcla de novela policiaca y narración misteriosa [The Case of the Barking Clock] (Madrid: Instituto Editorial Reus, 1947)
The Case of the Barking Clock (New York: Phoenix Press, 1947); (London: Ward, Lock & Co., 1951)
The Case of the Transposed Legs by Harry Stephen Keeler and Hazel Goodwin; (New York: Phoenix Press, 1948, (London: Ward, Lock & Co., 1951)
The Case of the Jeweled Ragpicker (New York: Phoenix Press, 1948); (London: Ward, Lock & Co., 1948 – as The Ace-of-Spades Murder)
The Murdered Mathematician (London: Ward, Lock & Co., 1949)
The Strange Will by Harry Stephen and Hazel Goodwin Keeler (London: Ward, Lock & Co., 1949)
The Steeltown Strangler (London: Ward, Lock & Co., 1950); (Madrid: Instituto Editorial Reus, 1958)
The Murder of London Lew (London: Ward, Lock & Co., 1952)
Stand By – London Calling! by Harry Stephen and Hazel Goodwin Keeler (London: Ward, Lock & Co., 1953)
Noches de verdugo [Hangman’s Nights] (Madrid: Instituto Editorial Reus, 1957)
O caso do cadáver endiabrado [The Case of the Crazy Corpse] (Lisbon: Editorial Século, 1958)
Ladrones de circos [The Circus Stealers] by Harry Stephen Keeler and Hazel Goodwin Keeler (Madrid: Instituto Editorial Reus, 1958)
El cubo carmesí [The Crimson Cube] (Madrid: Instituto Editorial Reus, 1959)
Una versión del Beowulf: Novela de aventuras y romance de amor del circo [A Copy of Beowulf: A Circus Novel of Romance and Adventure] by Harry Stephen and Hazel Goodwin Keeler (Madrid: Instituto Editorial Reus, 1960)