The Left Behind series of novels, starting in 1995, which begins with the rapture (with planes and cars crashing as Christians disappear) and carries through the tribulation years to Armageddon and the Second Coming has contributed to this rise in interest in the end times.

End time predictions have occurred over the ages.
A 2002 survey showed that 59 percent of Americans believe that the events in the Bible book of Revelation will occur in the future.

Joachim of Fiore, an influential 12th-century Italian monk calculated it would end in 1260.

"About the time of the end, a body of men will be raised up who will turn their attention to the prophecies, and insist upon their literal interpretation, in the midst of much clamor and opposition." Sir Isaac Newton (1643-1727 CE)

William Miller a prosperous farmer, a Baptist layman and amateur student of the Bible, living in northern New York. Using the prophecies of Daniel in 1822, Miller formally stated his conclusions that the second coming of Jesus Christ is near, even at the door, even within twenty-one years, Ñon or before 1843.

From the 1870s, when it was founded, to the present time, the Watchtower Society (WTS) (Jehovah's Witnesses) has made many estimates of when the world as we know it will end.
Charles Taze Russell (1852-1916), the WTS founder, believed that Christ had secretly arrived in the year 1874 and that he would establish the Kingdom of God on Earth in 1914-OCT. When that came and went they pointed to World War 1 as confirmation that the process had started.

Other WTS predictions included 1918, 1925.
Some Witnesses expected a dramatic event to occur in 1966-JUN (6/66) because the number 666 was referred to as the Mark of the Beast in Revelation 13:18.

They regarded the year 1975 a promising date for the end of the world, based on their original belief that it was the 6,000th anniversary of creation of both Adam and Eve at the Garden of Eden in 4026 BCE. They believe, along with many other conservative Protestant denominations, that the world would exist for exactly 1,000 years for each day of the creation week.

Many conservative Christians predicted the end when Israeli troops captured the Old City of Jerusalem from Arab forces in June 1967.

Some Witnesses interpreted Psalms 90:10 as defining the length of a generation to be 80 years. Since 1914 plus 80 equals 1994, they predicted Armageddon would occur around that year.
Since 1994, WTS prophecies have been more vague.

Other predictions:
In 1995 Tim LaHaye, an evangelical Christian minister, and Jerry Jenkins published, Left Behind, first in a series of 16 best-selling novels based on dispensationalist interpretation of prophecies in the Biblical books of Revelation, Isaiah and Ezekiel, Left Behind tells the story of the end times, in which many have been "raptured," leaving the world shattered and chaotic. Seven titles in the adult series have reached #1 on the bestseller lists.
The series has been adapted into three action thriller films.

Pat Robertson, is a media mogul, television evangelist, ex-Baptist minister and businessman who is politically aligned with the Christian Right.
In late 1976, Robertson predicted that the end of the world was coming in October or November 1982. In a May 1980 broadcast of The 700 Club he stated, "I guarantee you by the end of 1982 there is going to be a judgment on the world."
Robertson has continued to predict disaster scenarios from a Pacific Northwest tsunami in 2006 to a depression in 2010 (made after the US had entered a recession.)

Many Christian individuals and groups have long anticipated that Christ's return would happen in 2000 CE.

A Yankelovich Partners poll for Time/CNN in 1993-APR-28/9 found that 20% of Americans agreed that "...the second coming of Jesus Christ will occur sometime around the year 2000." 49% answered no, and 31% didn't know.

See 32 failed end of the world predictions for the year 2000 at ReligiousTolerance.org

• Eatrhquakes are increasing: Matt 24:4-8
  Fact: Earthquake occurance has been constant over time.
• Christianity will be preached throughout the world. Matt 24:14
  Fact: Only 27-40% of the people groups in the world have been reached by Christian missionaries.

Other Bible end time prophecies.

• The "ten toes" of Daniel 2:42 and the ten-horned beasts of Daniel 7:20 and Revelation 13:1 are references to a "revived" Roman Empire which will hold power before Christ returns. The formation of the European Union--and the fact that we have a reunified Germany are seen as signs of this.
• Having Israel as a nation in its own land is important in light of end-time prophecy, because of Israel's prominence in eschatology ( 11:40-42; Revelation 11:8).
• Revelations 6:1-8 talks of events of the Tribulation including men slaying each other and killing by kill by sword, famine and plague, and by the wild beasts of the earth.

Daniel Chapter 4 refer to Seven Times which is used in some calculations.

Christians have different interpretations of Revelations 20:2-3 which talks of a 1,000 year period.

Those who read the passage most literally - the so-called pre-millennialists - hold the most pessimistic views. They believe history is irrevocably deteriorating, on its way toward a period of terrible suffering, called the tribulation, which will only be broken when Jesus returns and rules for a thousand years.

Dispensationalism emerged as an offshoot of this last school, owing its spread in large part to the work of a 19th-century British evangelist, John Nelson Darby. The theology behind end-time prophecy - premillennial dispensationalism (from the idea that God has divided history into ages, or dispensations).

Rather than the single Second Coming of Christ expected by other Christians, it presents a two-stage return of Jesus, with the plagues and catastrophes depicted in Revelation literally to take place on Earth in between.

According to end-times teaching, Bible prophecies in Daniel, Revelation, and elsewhere apply literally to current events (there is much debate over who the Antichrist is) and are the key to understanding world history.

Source: The end of the world at Christian Science Monitor.

In Revelation 20, Satan is bound for 1000 years while Christ and the Christian martyrs reign. This brief reference has given rise to considerable discussion among those who read Revelation literally about whether Christ will actually return to earth before the 1000 year reign in order to inaugurate it (Premillennialism) or after it (Postmillennialism).

Groups such as Jehovah's Witnesses, Seventh-Day Adventists, most Baptists, and Assemblies of God hold to a premillennarian viewpoint, but there are considerable differences in how they understand it.

Those groups who understand the 1000 years symbolically--which includes Lutherans, Roman Catholics, Presbyterians, Episcopalians and others--are called amillennarian. Some amillenarians understand the millennium as that period of time between the first and second coming of Christ. Others describe it as a symbolic period time marking the inauguration of the world to come. Note that 1000 is 10 cubed, and a cube is the perfect geometrical shape describing the new Jerusalem in Revelation 21:9-27 . It is, therefore, perhaps a way of talking about 'time' after time is ended. That is, it is 'God's time' or eternal 'time.'
Source: REVELATION - Background Information at crossmarks.com

Some theologians read the passage and Revelation less literally. Drawing on references elsewhere in the Bible, they say the verse means that Christian influence will grow in the world until it is completely evangelized, leading to a millennial period of universal peace and prosperity. Because they believe Christ will return after the millennium, they are called post-millennialists.

Until the mid-19th century, most American Christians were actually post-millennialists. Their fervor for hastening Jesus' return animated many of the era's social movements, like the abolitionist movement. But the Civil War and the succeeding waves of industrialization, urbanization and immigration - and the social problems that came with them - helped cripple post-millenial optimism.

Today, only about a third of evangelicals are truly dispensationalists, estimated Richard Cizik, vice president of government affairs for the National Association of Evangelicals, although he said he thought most evangelicals are generally pre-millennial, harboring a more pessimistic outlook on history.

But the dispensationalists remain the most vocal segment, Mr. Cizik said. Aided by books, television and the Internet, they have shaped a fascination in evangelical culture on the end of days, said Craig C. Hill, a professor of New Testament theology at Wesley Theological Seminar in Washington and the author of "In God's Time: the Bible and the Future," about biblical prophecy. Preaching on the end times is an obvious way to draw an audience, Mr. Hill said.

See Also:
"Doomsday: The Latest Word if Not the Last", October 16, 2005 New York Times
Death tolls from disasters, wars, terrorists, Accidents...
End time Sequence
What are the signs of the end times?
Four Views of End Times Prophecy
End times at wikipedia.org
"Rapture: The End-Times Error That Leaves the Bible Behind", by David B. Currie - Explores the Bible sources for rapturist theology, aiming to demonstrate that it's a modern literalist interpretation based on selective passages taken out of context.