1874

Early on, the Watchtower taught that the battle of Armageddon would begin in 1874 and end in 1914.  Later, they changed their calculations by just over 100 years to fit their predictions for 1975 (see. “1975” elsewhere on this site).

“The date of the close of that ‘battle’ is definitely marked in Scripture as October, 1914.  It is already in progress, its beginning dating from October 1874.”  (WT 1/15/1892 p. 1355)

The Scriptural proof is that the period of his presence and the day of God’s preparation is a period from 1874 A. D. forward.  The second coming of the Lord, therefore, began in 1874; and that date and the years 1914 to 1918 are specially marked dates with reference to his coming.  (Creation p. 289 WTBTS 1927)

Just as it has been in this harvest: Our Lord’s presence as Bridegroom and Reaper was recognized during the first three and a half years, from A. D. 1874 to A. D. 1878.  Since that time it has been emphatically manifest that the time had come in A. D. 1878 when kingly judgment should begin at the house of God.  (The Time is at Hand p. 239 WTBTS 1909)

“In the year 1943 the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society published the book ‘The Truth Shall Make You Free.’  In its chapter 11, entitled “The Count of Time,” it did away with the insertion of  100 years into the period of the Judges and went according to the oldest and most authentic reading of Acts 13:20, and accepted the spelled-out numbers of the Hebrew Scriptures.  This moved forward the end of six thousand years of man’s existence into the decade of the 1970’s.  Naturally this did away with the year 1874 C. E. as the date of return of the Lord Jesus Christ and the beginning of his invisible presence by the detaining of Satan the Devil enchained in the abyss and by the reign of the 144,000 joint heirs with Christ in heavenly glory was therefore yet in the future.” (God’s Kingdom of a Thousand Years Has Approached p. 209-210 WTBTS 1973)