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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
Why the world keeps ending
If you want a happy ending, that depends, of course, on where you stop your story.
– Orson WellesSeen from a global perspective, October 23, 1844, was not an especially eventful day. The world was remarkably, if atypically peaceful. England was beginning what would be the long reign of Queen Victoria, and the United States just ending the profoundly uneventful presidency of John Tyler. No wars were fought: the only shadow of conflict was that looming between Mexico and what was for not much longer to be the independent Republic of Texas. Karl Marx had just met Friedrich Engels and completed one of his minor works. Charles Dickens had recently published the final installment of the serial novel Martin Chuzzlewit. Although not newsworthy at the time, the actress Sarah Bernhardt was born in Paris on this day. The lead story in the London daily Times concerned the upcoming visit of the Queen to the city, including helpful hints of where to stand for the best view of the royal procession. Nearly one whole page was devoted to a long, indignant letter from one member of the public who questioned the wisdom of forcing women in workhouses to break stones for a living. It was something of a slow news day.
But for a hundred thousand followers of the preacher William Miller, October 23 presented a very serious problem – it should not have arrived at all.
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