EisMe: I realize this, but we are in a different time period.
Most of the predictions of the past were grounded in the claim that things had gotten so bad that it had to be the time of the end. Crime, disease, famine, weather events, earthquakes, war, unease, a lack of compassion... all of these were used as signs that this time, it was going to happen.
The thing is, these things are always happening. You may as well claim that the rising and setting of the Sun are a sure sign of the end. In other words: we are not in a different time period, where these things are concerned. We're in the same time period we've always been in.