The Millerites (followers of Baptist preacher William Miller) anticipate the end of the world in conjunction with the Second Advent of Christ. The following day becomes known as the Great Disappointment.

Baptists are a Protestant tradition of Christianity distinguished by baptizing only believers and doing so by total immersion. Modern Baptist churches generally subscribe to the doctrines of soul competency, sola fide, sola scriptura and congregationalist ecclesiastical polity. Baptists generally recognize at least two sacraments or ordinances: Baptism and the Lord's Supper.

William Miller was an American clergyman who is credited with beginning the mid-19th-century North American religious movement known as Millerism. After his proclamation of the Second Coming did not occur as expected in the 1840s, new heirs of his message emerged, including the Advent Christians (1860), the Seventh-day Adventists (1863) and other Adventist movements.

The Second Coming is the Christian and Islamic belief that Jesus Christ will return to Earth after his ascension to Heaven. The idea is based on messianic prophecies and is part of most Christian eschatologies.

The Great Disappointment in the Millerite movement was the reaction that followed Baptist preacher William Miller's proclamation that Jesus Christ would return to the Earth by 1844, which he called the Second Advent. His study of the Daniel 8 prophecy during the Second Great Awakening led him to conclude that Daniel's "cleansing of the sanctuary" was cleansing the world from sin when Christ would come, and he and many others prepared. When Jesus did not appear by October 22, 1844, Miller and his followers were disappointed.