Slightly topical

[malcubed]

'By "deciphering" the Book of Revelations, a minister in Lochau--in what is now East Germany--proclaimed that the world would end on October 18, 1533. When it didn't happen, the minister--a Michael Stiftel--was given a thrashing by the townspeople.'

--Isaac Asimov, Isaac Asimov's Book of Facts