The founders of my family's religion - the Seventh-Day Adventists - had one of these moments. In 1844 the world was supposed to end and a bunch of believers gathered together and did the sell your possessions thing. It's a very famous thing for our church members, known as The Great Disappointment. Per wiki:
William Miller, a Baptist preacher, understood by studying the prophecies in the book of Daniel (Chapters 8 and 9, especially Dan. 8:14 "Unto two thousand and three hundred days; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed") that Jesus Christ would return to the earth during the year 1844. A more specific date, that of October 22, 1844, was preached by Samuel S. Snow."
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The third major post-disappointment Millerite group also claimed [] that the October 22 date was correct. [] They came to the conclusion that Miller's assumption that the sanctuary represented the Earth was in error. “The sanctuary to be cleansed in Daniel 8:14 was not the earth or the church, but the sanctuary in heaven.â€[13] Therefore, the October 22 date marked not the Second Coming of Christ, but rather a heavenly event. Out of this third group arose the Seventh-day Adventist Church and this interpretation of the Great Disappointment forms the basis for the Seventh-day Adventist doctrine of the pre-Advent Divine Investigative Judgment. Their interpretations were published in early 1845 in the Day Dawn.
It's all rather sad, really.