Perhaps the first caveman (or cavewoman) who beheld a falling meteor interpreted it as a portent of doom.

Since the beginning of recorded history, people have looked at events of their time, or cast their eyes starward, and predicted the end of the world. These stories transcend cultures and beliefs.

It’s a popular topic. A Google search on the word “apocalypse” resulted in 29.9 million hits; one on “apocalyptic visions,” 909,000 hits.

According to the Bible, Noah began building his ark decades before it started raining. In Genesis, God warned Noah of his plan to destroy the world in a cataclysmic flood, except for Noah and his family and the animals to be taken aboard. Noah followed God’s instructions and built and loaded the ark as directed. Its occupants survived the flood, landed upon Mount Ararat, and began to repopulate the earth.

The Jews were not the only ones telling of the great flood. The Sumerian culture and other ancient civilizations had their versions of the event.

In more recent times, others have forecast the events surrounding the end times with predictions and in fiction. Most popular among the latter are the “Left Behind” books written by television pastor Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins. Their series and a companion series for teens follow the events forecast in Revelation, including the appearance of the Antichrist, the years of tribulation, and the struggle between good and evil forces as they await the second coming of Christ.

Cartoons of end-of-world predictors portray bearded, robed old men standing on corners wearing sandwich boards proclaiming earth’s demise. And 20th century American humorist James Thurber provided an amusing view of one such character in his short story, “The Day the Dam Broke.”

The town in question in Thurber’s story was downriver from a large dam. For some time, a person known as the “Get Ready Man” had been driving around town, in a truck with a large loudspeaker mounted on top, telling people to get ready for the end of the world.

As the story opens, someone reports that the dam has burst and the town is about to be flooded. In chicken-with-its-head-cut-off fashion, the residents run around aimlessly, trying to get out of the way. In the midst of the chaos, the Get Ready Man drives through the crowd, bellowing, “Get ready! The world is coming to an end! Are you ready?” Despite the confusion, the rumor was false and the dam didn’t break.

Numerous people over the years have foretold the end of the earth. Obviously, those who predicted an exact date for the end-time events in the past have been wrong.

“I feel they may have been devout people, but they were erroneous and prideful about picking a date,” said the Rev. Jared Schopper of Boudinot Baptist Church.

The Rev. Terry Stone, of First Assembly of God, agrees those who have set dates in the past erred. He cites Jesus’ prediction that “no man knows the day or the hour, not even the angels in heaven, just the father.”

Nevertheless, these beliefs have persisted over the years. Even before Christ’s birth, some people believed the world would come to an end in their time.

Apocalyptic literature was a popular genre in that era, with various accounts of the world composed. Only Revelation made it into the Christian Bible.

The biblical Book of Daniel, written about 164 B.C. and probably the work of several authors, may be considered the first real apocalypse, Norman Cohn, a fellow of the British Academy and professor emeritus at Sussex University, told the PBS documentary series “Frontline.” It was composed during the Maccabean war, when Jews revolted against Syrian occupants who had persecuted the Jews and desecrated their temple.

Daniel, a series of five dreams, described what was to happen in the last days. It included the invasion of Jerusalem and the signs of the end times in vivid terms. This would allow the rebuilding of the kingdom of Israel.

John Collins, a professor of the Hebrew Bible at the University of Chicago Divinity School, told the PBS documentary series “Frontline” that Jesus and John the Baptist could be regarded as apocalyptic prophets, “meaning that they were people who expected an abrupt and decisive change, that you might describe as the manifestation of the kingdom of God.”

After the death of the early apostles, many Christians thought Christ’s second coming was imminent. These beliefs persisted through the Middle Ages and up to the present. Comets and other heavenly (and earthly) manifestations have been taken as portents of impending doom.

Mother Shipton, born as Ursula Sonthiel in rural England in July 1488, began prophesying as an old woman about 1562. While her prophecies were regarded as fiction, they included the discovery of a new land across the sea (that already had happened by 1562), thoughts flying around the world in an instant, men riding without horses and walking under the sea, three tyrant rulers in France, the British and German royal families joining, floating ships of iron and war in the Middle East. Shipton forecast the world would end in 1881, according to a poem written by Charles Hindley about 1862.

In 16th century Germany, Thomas Muentzer preached to peasants that wealthy people of the day were the evil ones whose destruction was forecast in Revelation. His teachings incited a struggle in 1525 that resulted in the slaying of about 5,000 peasants. He convinced his followers he would be able to catch the rich troops’ cannonballs in his shirtsleeves, protecting them.

Christopher Columbus and the Puritans both held apocalyptic views, according to the “Frontline” series. Some participants in the American Revolution regarded it as an awakening, a spiritual birth allowing the expanding of God’s kingdom. They believed their struggle was not just political, but the result of a spiritual quest. Some interpreted the Stamp Act, one of a series of British mandates that incited the revolution, as the mark of the beast because it required government-approved stamps on official documents.

Joanna Southcott, born in 1750 in England and raised a Methodist, later proclaimed herself a prophet. She predicted that on Oct. 29, 1814, she would give birth to the new Messiah. On that date, she went into a trance and died shortly thereafter. Although an autopsy revealed no pregnancy and listed the source of her apparent pregnancy as “flatulence and excessive ornantal fat,” her followers remained faithful. To this day, the Panacea Society of Bedford, England, reflects her beliefs.

In America, William Miller predicted the second coming of Christ would occur March 21, 1843. Prior to that spring equinox, many people quit their jobs, and sold their property and possessions in anticipation of the event. It didn’t happen.

Miller regrouped, telling followers he was off by a year because of the change in time that occurred at Christ’s birth, from B.C. to A.D. under his dating system. He told people to get ready for March 21, 1844, when Christ was sure to come.

On that date, as many as 100,000 Millerites gathered on hilltops to “meet the bridegroom.” While some became disillusioned with Miller after the failure of a divine apparition, others rationalized that Jesus actually began, on that date in 1844, to minister to his faithful followers who were already in heaven.

The 1844 date became known as the “Great Disappointment.”

During the 1980s, Edgar Wisenaut wrote “88 Reasons why the World Will End in 1988.” It was distributed among ministers and other Christians.

Schopper said some people predicted the second coming would occur a generation after Jerusalem was re-established. Counting 40 years from the time that happened in 1948, that would make 1988 the year, since 40 years was considered to encompass a generation.

“I remember getting mail here at the church from some guy who really had it nailed down,” he said, referring to Wisenaut.

The end of the world for members of the People’s Temple came on Nov. 18, 1978, when more than 900 adults and children committed suicide in Jonestown, Guyana, at the orders of cult leader Jim Jones. A congressman and aides who had flown to Guyana to investigate allegations about the group were gunned down upon their arrival, then Jones’ followers drank Kool-Aid laced with cyanide to end their lives.

While the mass suicide in Guyana apparently resulted from mounting pressure precipitated by the investigation, another group suicide took place several years later, without publicity, until the bodies were discovered in a southern California mansion.

Heaven’s Gate was founded by Marshall Applewhite (1931-1997) and Bonnie H. Nettles (1927-1985), in 1975. Applewhite had predicted that after 1,260 days of bearing witness to the truth, their enemies would kill them and they would ascend to heaven in a cloud (or, as he interpreted it, a spacecraft). The Applewhite group committed suicide Nov. 27, 1997, purportedly en route to a spaceship concealed by the Hale-Bopp comet.

In that same year, a perfect red heifer was born in Texas. Jewish prophets had forecast that the temple could be rebuilt in Jerusalem after such an animal was sacrificed and its ashes used to purify believers entering the temple. But before the heifer attained the sacrificial age of 3 years, a few white hairs appeared in its tail.

“This bovine, alas, was not divine,” the writer concluded in the National Review.

That magazine reported a second red heifer was calved in March 2002. Its fate remains unknown.

One of the most renowned deaths of apocalyptic group members came when federal agents raided the compound of Branch Davidians near Waco, Texas, on a Sunday morning in 1993, after a 51-day siege.

The group’s leader was David Koresh, born Vernon Howell in 1959. Koresh had visited Jerusalem and the Holy Land in 1985 to see how the actual site of sacred predictions tied in with the book of Revelation, which he interpreted literally. He later said that during that visit, he was ecstatically caught up into heaven, given a scroll or book and told to eat it, PBS Frontline reported. He then believed he understood the Bible’s mysteries. He thought he was the final messianic figure to come before the world’s end.

As the year 2000 approached, the doomsday prophets took another turn. They forecast everything from computers worldwide shutting down to planes falling from the sky and other dire catastrophes. Once again, Jan. 1, 2000, and Jan. 1, 2001, came and went without significant events.

The Rev. Thea Nietfeld of the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Tahlequah believes people should use their minds to decide what to believe about such predictions. She said rationality has a place in faith.

“Our approach to religion is a map to consider whether ideas make sense, not just to trust them,” she said.

Stone and Pastor James Bokovy of Tahlequah Seventh-Day Adventist Church agree the reliable source for information about the events leading to Christ’s second coming is the Bible and what Jesus told the disciples about end-time events.

“I’d have to stick to following Christ,” Bokovoy said, citing Jesus’ statement that no man knows the hour or day when those events will occur.

“It’s just human tendency to want to set dates. The Bible says only God knows the hour when he will come,” he said.

Jesus told the disciples many false prophets would rise in the years to come.

“Everybody always looks at who’s fighting who, where are wars and the beginning of wars,” Bokovoy said. “Christ said we don’t know the hour, but we know what to look for.”

Stone said Noah’s neighbors laughed when he built the ark, but people should look to the Bible for knowledge and follow the teachings of Christ.

“It’s like we want to shake the world and pay attention. The coming of the end of the world is near,” he said. “You always have to go back to what the Bible says.”

Tomorrow: How and where will the apocalypse come?