At Least We’ll Avoid Black Tuesday

thisisit 

December 29, 1927
Everywhere

Over there in Paris, noted astrologer and seer Professor Pav has pronounced that as years go, 1927 will pretty much be our last.  Pav’s millenarianistic prognostication has it all:  Biblical foretelling, global warming (in this case, cooling), even the sky falling.  I don’t want to spoil the ending, but we may just come out of this all kinder and gentler.  Uh-huh.  

“The end of the world is imminent, but the globe will not be totally destroyed,” said Pav the Prof.  “The constellation Lion, from the effect of some unknown force, will explode.  A tremendous noise will be heard all over the world.  Multitudes of stars composing the Fubulae will smash and a rain of falling stars will be visible in the sky.
“An immense block, like a gigantic meteorite, will fall on the earth.  The rupture of the planetary equilibrium will not cause disaster to the entire system, but the same night a bitter cold wave will be felt, and in the morning there will be ice and snow, although the catastrophe is due to occur in summer.
“A large number of people will die in all corners of the globe, crops will be frozen and famine will conclude the hecatomb.
“The most terrible part will be the falling on the earth of a colossal meteorite.  The earth itself will be jolted from its orbit by the shock, but a magnetic force will prevent it falling and colliding with another planet.  Large areas of land will disappear and new continents will appear.
“At the end of the cataclysm only a relatively few people will survive.
“Afterward nature will resume her task and man will become wiser and more tender.  The bases of the present civilization will not be destroyed entirely.  The survivors will create a new social system, based on the respect of human life and confraternity.
“All holy scriptures and writings point to the year 1928 as being marked with the year 1928 as being marked with a special sign.  It is possible that, owing to changes in the calendars during the centuries, there is a discrepancy, but the catastrophe will certainly happen during a summer night.
“Savants will be able to warn us in advance of the approach of the bolide.”

(Speaking of savants, interestingly, 1920s Scottish pyramidologist and BI posterboy David Davidson posited the Beginning Of The End would commence in 1928; he then foresaw the Great Depression, and World War II, and a “union of Britain and America” in 1947-8 [must’ve had something to do with the Arab-Israeli Conflict].  Oh yeah, and he predicted that the “millennial reign of righteousness” would begin on September 17, 2001.  Well, close enough.)
 

The Edendale Asteroid

December 20, 1907meteor
Edendale

Was Los Angeles nearly ground zero for a Cretaceous-tertiary extinction event-styled piece of catastrophism?  Sort of.  Not really.

An asteroid nearly reached the open field near the home of Joseph Phillis, at the corner of McCullom and Berkeley early this morning.  It exploded just before impact, leaving a burned patch twelve feet in diameter.  The neighborhood was filled with heavy sulphurous smoke, in the center of which burned a dim blue flame.

Surrounding homes were rocked by the loud explosion and lit up by a Fourth of July spectacular, but the only extant remains of our spacejectile the shaken denizens could find were chunks of meteorite that resembled volcanic rock.

Otherwise neighbors, and dinosaurs, were not affected.