Just as some people today believe a Maya calendar pinpoints 2012 as the end of the world as we know it, some ancient Romans saw the A.D. 79 eruption of Mount Vesuvius as a sign of coming apcalypse. That's because Roman philosopher Seneca, who died in A.D. 65, had predicted the Earth would go up in smoke: 'All we see and admire today will burn in the universal fire that ushers in a new, just, happy world,' he said, according to the 1999 book Apocalypses.
The end never came, but that hasn't stopped people - over centuries and across culture - from forecasting our collective doom.
news.nationalgeographic.com
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