The List

THE END IS NIGH-ISH: 1520s: Anabaptists in Northern Europe believed they were living at the end of all ages; 1814: Joanna Southcott believed a socialist heaven would begin when she gave birth to the second Christ, but died childless; 1822: John Wroe took over Southcott's followers and began waiting for the second coming in Ashton-under-Lyne; 23 April 1990: 3,000 followers of Elizabeth Prophet took to a bunker in Paradise Valley, Montana to escape the world's end; 28 October 1992: 20,000 South Koreans waited for the world to end at midnight; April 1993: David Koresh and 86 'Branch Davidians' set fire to their ranch and died at Waco, Texas; 14 (or 24) November 1993: according to Maria Devi Khristos, imprisoned leader of the Great White Brotherhood, but she is still negotiating.

NOT TO BE CONFUSED WITH: World's Ends in Berks, Bucks, Hants, and Sussex; near Chelsea and Enfield; Worlds End near Solihull; or Mount World's End in Sri Lanka.

FILMS TO WATCH MEANWHILE: Apocalypse Now (1979); Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1961); The Day the Earth Caught Fire (1961); On the Beach (1959); Until the End of the World (1991).

TODAY is the feast day of St Laurence O'Toole (Lorcan Ua Tuathail), archbishop of Dublin, who acted as peacemaker between Henry II and Rory O'Connor, high-king of Ireland, after the English invaded Ireland in 1170.

1889: Jawaharlal 'Pandit' Nehru (above), Indian statesman, born. Educated at Harrow and Cambridge, he read for the bar. He returned to India and was imprisoned for political activity in 1921, spending 18 of the next 25 years in jail. He became first prime minister of India in 1947.

1940: Coventry cathedral bombed.

1969: Colour television started in UK.

1973: Princess Anne married Captain Mark Phillips in Westminster Abbey.

BIRTHDAYS: Prince of Wales, 45; King Hussein of Jordan, 58.

DEATHS: Jill Tweedie, journalist, aged 57; Laura Davies, aged 5; Bob Haldeman, aged 67, White House chief of staff during Watergate scandal.

(Photograph omitted)