The World Will End at Half Past Six

I got interested on predictions for the end of the world when I heard "Tinderbox" by Elton John.
The first verse of the song goes:
Nostradamus said I predict
That the world will end at half past six
What he didn't say was exactly when
Was he listening to the radio?
Was he listening to the government?

First of all, Nostradamus' predictions have no been proven to even have been intended as predictions. Many believe that he was simply writing about events in his own time, and that he uses future tense and avasive language to avoid prosecution. Whether or not he did in fact make predictions, his writings (hindsight 20/20 of course) predicted major world events such as the French Revolution, the events of September 11, 2001 (the attack on the Twin Towers), as well as the war in Iraq. This is, of course, debatable.
However, Nostradamus did predict that the world would end at half past six: 6:30... no indication of morning or night.
"What he didn't say was exactly when" is not completely true.
He did not give a specific day, or even a specific year. He did, however, indicate that it would be somewhere in the area of the year 3700. (I've seen many interpretations of this, the most prominent saying that it will be the year 3797, but that's too precise for my liking. I'd say it was more of a general prediction.)

Considering the course that the world is taking at the moment, that date seems completely plausible. In 2008 years, we have successfully begun a downspiral in our world. This is a large planet with over 6 billion people; assuming that the rest of the destruction would occur over the next 1692 years would make complete sense. In all consideration, that is not a very long time.

Then again, history has proven that these predictions are obviously not reliable sources. I'd think that would be a give-in, but let's throw out some examples for clarification and for enjoyment.

Most of them are obviously completely incomprehensible (messages from aliens and other dimensions and such) but I did find the following particularly interesting:

1. "The Lord's Witnesses," a religious group from England argued that the Bible actually contained inscriptions that predicted various events throughout the history of the earth. They mathematically "concluded" that from Adam's birth in 4027BC, the world would end in 2008. They also predicted that it would be as a result of some great war.
Many people who believed this theory argued that George W. Bush would be the cause of this. The War in Iraq could turn into a great war, which could destroy the world through nuclear weapons.
While I do think that George W. Bush was the worst thing to ever happen to the United States (hence our current economic crisis and the war in Iraq), I do not believe that he is the Spawn of Satan. Nice try though.

The Mayans predicted that the world will end during a winter solstice in 2012. They worked it out through a series of decades that they had set up through their calendar. They had days, months, years, and two other forms of time measurement (something like caduns and backduns, don't quote me on that), and they predicted through a cycle of these time measurements that we will no longer exist in 2012. Lookin forward to the next 4 years!

This one is my absolute favorite. Pope Leo IX predicted the world would end around the year 1914, saying:
"I will not see the end of the world, nor will you my brethren, for its time is long in the future, 500 years hence."
Man of God was wrong. I'd say pretention and arrogance are the cause.

Origins surrounding the number 666 (the Number of the Beast) predicted that the world would end in 1998. That has obviously passed. Now the man who predicted it, Eli Eshoh, is saying that it will actually be in 2028. He continued to say that nearly 700,000 people were "taken to heaven" in 1998, and the rest of us were not yet worthy. He says that the trials that we are experiencing since that year (natural disasters and such) are tests to prove whether or not we are truly worth it by 2028. It's a good thing nobody's dying between 1998 and 2028!
The interesting fact about this is that science predicted the same date.
I've covered unreasonable prophecies, and religious prophecies, it only makes sense to then cover science.

Science predicted that a giant meteorite would collide with earth in the year 2028. The impact would cause tidal waves so large that the world would flood. Another theory presented stated that the collision would simply destroy such large landmass that the rotation of the earth would be changed, causing enough natural disasters to destroy us bit by bit.
Of course, since the 2028 prediction was made, it was proven that the same meteorite is actually going to hit twice as far away from us as the moon, and will never have the potential to hit Earth.

Sorry, that was just a rant that I found interesting. In my opinion, Nostradamus' prediction was the most probable.