March 4 came and went and, luckily, nothing happened. There was no inauguration of Donald Trump as the 19th (seriously, people??) president, but because of the threat of QAnon and militia adherents descending again on the Capitol, the U.S. House canceled its session for last Thursday.

Rumor has it that some believed it was a trap, I guess set by that dastardly international cabal of Satan-worshiping pizza enthusiasts. Still, some followers of QAnon showed up anyway, hoping to see Trump inaugurated. Sorry, folks, not in this reality.

The warnings turned out to be overly cautious but not unmerited, considering the January attack on the Capitol. I mean, did we really need another batch of people wanting to overthrow the government installed after a free and fair election? D.C. will probably be paying off the damage done in January for a long time to come.

Over the years there have been a lot of predictions made about various things, some of which made some sense based on an unbiased reading of history. Others, though, have turned out to be the product of overactive imaginations.

Let’s take a look at a few other things that didn’t happen.

🌊 Another worldwide flood.

According to Mark D. Strauss in Smithsonian Magazine, German mathematician and astronomer Johannes Stöffler predicted in 1499 that a flood would engulf the world on Feb. 20, 1524. Some astrology crept in with a mention of a “watery sign,” meaning Pisces. Sure, blame it on people like my mom.

“In Europe, more than 100 different pamphlets were published endorsing Stöffler’s doomsday prophecy. Business boomed for boat-builders, not least for German nobleman Count von Iggleheim, who constructed a three-story ark on the Rhine,” wrote Strauss. “Although 1524 was a drought year in Europe, a light rain did fall on the designated day. Crowds of people—hoping to gain a seat on Iggleheim’s ark—began to riot. Hundreds were killed and the count was stoned to death. Stöffler later recalculated the actual date to be 1528, but by then his reputation as a soothsayer had been ruined.”

That 1528 flood didn’t happen either. Shocker.

🌎 The world didn’t end.

Numerous people have pinpointed days on which they predicted the world would end, most notably, perhaps, Harold Camping, whose many predicted doomsdays came and went without incident. And remember that Mayan prophecy? And what about the Heaven’s Gate cult?

Those of us who were in the New Madrid Seismic Zone in 1990, though, remember Iben Browning.

Browning was a “self-proclaimed climatologist” who predicted a major earthquake on Dec. 2 or 3, 1990, on the New Madrid fault; I remember a geology professor interviewed around that time said a quake of that magnitude (the prediction was 7 or greater on the Richter scale, I believe) would basically turn the entire region to soup. I was an undergraduate student at Arkansas State University in Jonesboro then, and had more than a few times felt tremors (it was especially chilling if you happened to be standing on the second-floor lobby balcony of the Fine Arts building), but it was never a big concern for me. I was more concerned about getting to all my classes than possibly dying in an earthquake.

Still, in one of my political science classes, my professor joked as the date neared that, if the world didn’t end but we didn’t show up to class, it would be an unexcused absence. Dr. Wang (one of my favorites there, which is why I took three of his classes) was nothing if not snarky, especially when it came to doomsday predictions.

That major quake never happened, and I’m pretty sure most of us turned up for class. I know I did.

🔫 The Democrats haven’t taken away everyone’s guns (or replaced them all with water-guns; WTH, emoji people?).

Every time a Democrat is elected to the White House, urgent calls go out that everyone’s gun rights are in danger and the administration will be around to confiscate your guns any day now (John Lott is one of the worst of the doomsayers). That would be a neat trick, considering that there are more guns than people in the U.S., owned by less than a third of Americans.

Has it happened? Nope. But gun manufacturers (and the NRA, from the mid-1970s until recently) have been laughing all the way to the bank every time, as it means they sell more guns and ammunition because people want to stockpile munitions in case they—what? really?—have to defend themselves against a government that has tanks, rockets and other far more deadly and sophisticated weaponry. Because sure, that’ll turn out well. Hey, I loved shooting an MP5 (great for people with short arms; I was much more accurate with it than the M16 at the shooting range for my Citizens Police Academy class), but I don’t need one, nor does anyone else who isn’t military or police. A pistol or a shotgun is plenty for self-defense; no one needs an arsenal.

And considering that Arkansas just passed an unnecessary “stand your ground” law (unnecessary according to the governor—who signed it anyway—because the self-defense law already gave more than adequate protection), I foresee a lot more stupid behavior with guns. It’s bad enough that too many people have too many guns that are not well-secured (remember that in probably most school shootings, the guns are legally bought by a family member and accessed by someone else in the home).

Meanwhile, polls through the years have shown that Americans on the whole are in favor of common-sense gun regulation, such as universal background checks and red-flag laws, while a small percentage of people still claim that there can be no infringement of Second Amendment rights (those absolutists might want to consult the writings of Justice Antonin Scalia in that regard instead of painting all Democrats as Beto O’Rourke, who isn’t even in office).

Things like this don’t take guns away from lawful owners, and never mind that doing away with the Second Amendment would take a new amendment proposed by two-thirds of the House and Senate, or by a constitutional convention called for by two-thirds of the state legislatures, then ratified by three-quarters of the states.

But sure, the warnings issued by people who profit by selling you guns and ammunition are far more believable.

🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔

Aha, I hear some of you say, so there’s no need to worry about predictions of doom. In most cases, sure. However …

Authorities in D.C. were on heightened alert because of what happened in January, and because of intel of a potential new threat due to QAnon. After five people died at the Capitol, caution was justified, just as it was after 9/11 when security was heightened around the country. And now QAnon has switched to March 20, sort of like Harold Camping and others who’ve made such predictions, so D.C., National Guard, and Capitol security forces can’t ease back just yet. For those of you who keep posting photos of fences and added security around the Capitol to make fun of members of Congress needing protection, it’s things like the events of Jan. 6 that made that necessary. Think Newton’s Law.

Basing actions on what intelligence services, history, legal scholars and the like advise isn’t foolish. Believing doomsday prophets and profiteers is.

I’ve always believed in hoping for the best but preparing for the worst, which basically just means going on with your life with the awareness that something might happen to ruin your plans and being prepared to respond just in case things go awry. I think the reaction of one public servant during New England’s “Dark Day” is the best example.

Strauss of Smithsonian Magazine wrote, “At 9 a.m. on May 19, 1780, the sky over New England was enveloped in darkness. An 1881 article in Harper’s Magazine stated that, ‘Birds went to roost, cocks crowed at mid-day as at midnight, and the animals were plainly terrified.’

“The unnatural gloom is believed to have been caused by smoke from forest fires, possibly coupled with heavy fog. But at the time, some feared the worst. “’People [came] out wringing their hands and howling, the Day of Judgment is come,’ recalled a Revolutionary War fifer. The ‘Dark Day’ ended at midnight, when the stars once again became visible in the night sky. …

“The most famous individual to emerge from the ‘Dark Day’ was Abraham Davenport, a member of the Connecticut legislature, which was in session when the sky blackened. Members of the legislature, fearing the apocalypse had come, moved for adjournment. Davenport is said to have responded: ‘The day of judgment is either approaching, or it is not. If it is not, there is no cause of an adjournment; if it is, I choose to be found doing my duty. I wish therefore that candles may be brought.'”

As the man said, carry on.