January 8: Formation of the Jehovah's Witnesses

In 1942, Joseph Franklin Rutherford died.

As a young man, Rutherford had been a disciple of Watch Tower Society founder Charles Taze Russell. In 1914, the last of three major predictions of the end of the world which Russell made in his career, failed. When Russell himself died in 1916, his Watch Tower Society fell into some disorder, but Rutherford succeeded in taking control over the board and ultimately reshaping the group’s remains into a new organization named the Jehovah's Witnesses. This new group successfully went on to issue its own prophecies of apocalypse for 1918, 1920, 1925, 1941, 1975, and 1984. "Our generation will see the great battle of Armageddon" and "Millions now living will never die" were among Rutherford's rallying cries, widely circulated in periodicals and leaflets.