USA Today arrticle mentions the failed proepchies of Herbert Armstrong:
A number of congregations including the Seventh-day Adventists can trace their roots to the "Great Disappointment" of 1844, a year when a preacher named William Miller moved thousands of Christians to give away their possessions with prophecies detailing what he thought would be the second coming of Jesus Christ.
Millions of Americans also listened as Herbert W. Armstrong, a warbled-voice minister belted out dire prophecies of famine, war and pestilence in the late 1930s – during the Dust Bowl drought and just before the onset of World War II. President Harry Truman, an avid student of the Bible and its prophecies regarding the return of Jews to the Holy Land, was the first world leader to recognize Israel in 1948, a moment some Christians believe began a new prophetic era for events in the Middle East.
See article: Some see biblical visions of doom in Syria trouble