Reply #19: I recall one "Astrologer" predicting global cosmic catastrophe...

[Speck Tater]

but she certainly wasn't taken seriously.

However, there WERE a handfull of "gold bugs" and hard currency fanatics like author Harry Browne that have been predicting the collapse of US currency more or less continuously ever since we went off the gold standard. Books like "How you can profit from the coming devaluation" (1970 Harry Browne) and "The collapse of the dollar & the approaching catastrophe in the world monetary order" (1977 Glenn Mitchell) and "The New Inflation: The Collapse of Free Markets" (1979 W. David Slawson)

Going back even furth, however, we have the predection of the collapse of all of western civilization in "The Decline of the West" (1918-1923 Oswald Spengler) and theories on how civilizations disintegrate in "A Study of History" (1947 Arnold Toynbee)

Then there is Revelations in the New Testament which according to that book was supposed to happen "before this generation passes". (Modern Christians just gloss over that part of the prophecy.)

The history of doom and gloom pedlers is a long one indeed. Just for fun, here are several hundred scheduled end of the world dates: http://www.abhota.info/end1.htm