Armageddon, Antichrist, nuclear holocaust, polar shifts. Be it a new millennium, planetary alignment or a comet, doomsday prophets have a field day with their end of the world predictions. But is there really any rational basis for such an apocalyptic outlook?

D-DAYS

Some popular ends of the world:

666: Year of the Dead

1000: Popular belief, fuelled by apocalyptic preachers

1003: The year of Christ's Crucifixion

1666: Preachers after the Great London Fire

1992: Popular belief over Halley's comet

1999: Seventh Day Adventists; Jehovah's Witnesses; Nostradamus

2000: Grand Conjunction (May 4); Ice Shift

2001: Edgar Cayce (Axis Shift)

2025: Max Tooth predicts collapse of humanity

6300: Tooth predicts the Grand Climacteric