Elsewhere I recounted the story of a girl I knew who was born in 1976. Her mother was constantly hounded by her JW sister who told her "That baby's never going to be born"; i.e. the mother would be killed in Armageddon, which was imminent. So the family joke came about how she was "the baby that would never be born".
1975 was very real to JWs at the time. And their literature had references to that date. The GB has since learnt to only imply dates and never to put a date in writing. 1914 itself has all but fallen by the wayside; they hardly reference it anymore.