Harold Camping, the octogenarian multimillionaire preacher who heads the worldwide religious broadcasting network Family Radio, predicted years ago that the End Times — the coming Judgment Day, Armageddon, the Apocalypse, Doomsday, the End of the World — would be revealed today, Saturday, May 21, 2011.

A year-old posting from Church of God News crunched the numbers: Saturday, May 21, 2011 supposedly marks 7,000 years since the Great Flood of Noah’s Ark, and 722,500 days since the crucifixion of Jesus. By Camping’s numerology, 722,500 represents (5 x 10 x 17) x (5 x 10 x 17), or the square of atonement times completeness times heaven.

Could this be the first sign of the coming Rapture?

More photos

——

Video

End of world predicted to happen ‘at suppertime’ (NBC Nightly News, May 20, 2011) — Harold Camping claims this Saturday, May 21, is the rapture, when a huge earthquake will end life on earth and only the true believers will be taken up to heaven. NBC’s Kerry Sanders reports. (02:06)

Allison Warden shows off her car, emblazoned with messages about the expected Rapture on Saturday, May 21, 2011. Warden, of Raleigh, N.C., has been helping organize a pre-Rapture campaign using billboards, postcards and other media in cities across the U.S. (Photo credit: Gerry Broome / AP file)

Video

Believers prep for the end of the world (NBC News, May 20, 2011) — Doomsday prediction has believers preparing, skeptics scoffing. NBC’s Kristen Dahlgren reports. (01:57)

——

Acknowledgment

Why we’re enraptured by the Rapture
(Alan Boyle, MSNBC.com, May 20, 2011)

——

Late update

Volcano in Iceland erupts, spurs 50 small quakes (MSNBC.com, May 21, 2011) — Iceland’s most active volcano erupted Saturday, with a white plume shooting 18,000 feet into the air, scientists said. The eruption was followed by around 50 small earthquakes, the largest of which measured 3.7 on the Richter Scale, according to Iceland’s meteorological office…. Full story

An aerial view shows the eruption of the volcano Grimsvotn in the south-east of Iceland, May 21, 2011. (Photo credit: Egill Adalsteinsson / EPA)

——

Related reports on this site

Bachmann Bats for End Times Prophet (May 20, 2009)

U.S. West Coast Braces for Tsunami (March 12, 2011)

Oil Spill Fundamentalist Threat (June 21, 2010)

——

5/22/11 Update

Lightning from a severe thunderstorm flashes in the distance beyond a crucifix in a cemetery near Easton, Kansas, Saturday, May 21, 2011. (Photo: Charlie Riedel / AP)

——

FROM THE ARCHIVES: One Year Ago — May 21, 2010

Explosion Rocks Iraqi Market

A resident collects pieces of human flesh from the site of a bomb attack in Basra on Monday, May 10, 2010 — one in a string of attacks across the country targeting Shiites, killing more than 100 people. (Photo credit: Atef Hassan / Reuters)

One year ago today, I reported that a car bomb exploded at an open-air market in the Shiite town of Khalis, northeast of Baghdad, killing 23 people and wounding more than 50.

——

FROM THE ARCHIVES: Two Years Ago — May 21, 2009

Mass Casualty Baghdad Bombings

People gather at the site of a car bomb explosion in Shula, Baghdad, Iraq, Thursday, May 21, 2009, a day after a parked car bomb exploded near a popular restaurant, killing 41 people and injured 76 others, police said. (Photo credit: Hadi Mizban / AP)

Two years ago today, on May 21, 2009, I reported that a series of bombings hit Baghdad and the northern Iraq city of Kirkuk, killing at least 25 people (including three U.S. troops) and wounding dozens more (including nine American soldiers), one day after a car bomb exploded near a group of restaurants in a Shiite neighborhood of northwest Baghdad, killing 41 people and injuring more than 70.