Are there historical examples of civilization reaction to learning about impending doom?

score:7

Accepted answer

Do these events fit your criteria?

  • When an invading army breaches the defenses, and everyone in the city know they are likely to die horribly.

Nanjing Massacre

With the relocation of the capital of China and the reports of Japanese brutality, most of the civilian population fled Nanjing out of fear. Wealthy families were the first to flee, leaving Nanjing in automobiles, followed by the evacuation of the middle class and then the poor, while only the destitute lowest class such as the ethnic Tanka boat people remained behind. Three quarters of the population had fled Nanjing before the Japanese arrived.

Fall of Constantinople (1453)

When Turkish flags were seen flying above the Kerkoporta, a small postern gate that was left open, panic ensued and the defence collapsed. Janissaries, led by UlubatlΔ± Hasan, pressed forward. Many Greek soldiers ran back home to protect their families, the Venetians retreated to their ships and a few of the Genoese escaped to Galata. The rest surrendered or committed suicide by jumping off the city walls. ... A few lucky civilians managed to escape. When the Venetians retreated over to their ships, the Ottomans had already taken the walls of the Golden Horn. Luckily for the occupants of the city, the Ottomans were not interested in killing potentially valuable slaves but rather in the loot they could get from raiding the city's houses, so they decided to attack the city instead. The Venetian captain ordered his men to break open the gate of the Golden Horn. Having done so, the Venetians left in ships filled with soldiers and refugees. Shortly after the Venetians left, a few Genoese ships and even the Emperor's ships followed them out of the Golden Horn. This fleet narrowly escaped prior to the Ottoman navy assuming control over the Golden Horn, which was accomplished by midday.

... The army converged upon the Augusteum, the vast square that fronted the great church of Hagia Sophia whose bronze gates were barred by a huge throng of civilians inside the building, hoping for divine protection. After the doors were breached, the troops separated the congregation according to what price they might bring in the slave markets. ... The Venetian Barbaro observed that blood flowed in the city "like rainwater in the gutters after a sudden storm" and that bodies of Turks and Christians floated in the sea "like melons along a canal".

  • For another example due to a natural disaster:

Sinking of the Titanic

Many people tried to save themselves, while others largely accepted their fate.

Some, perhaps overwhelmed by it all, made no attempt to escape and stayed in their cabins or congregated in prayer in the third-class dining room. Leading Fireman Charles Hendrickson saw crowds of third-class passengers below decks with their trunks and possessions, as if waiting for someone to direct them. Psychologist Wynn Craig Wade attributes this to "stoic passivity" produced by generations of being told what to do by social superiors. August WennerstrΓΆm, one of the male steerage passengers to survive, commented later that many of his companions had made no effort to save themselves. He wrote: Hundreds were in a circle [in the third-class dining saloon] with a preacher in the middle, praying, crying, asking God and Mary to help them. They lay there and yelled, never lifting a hand to help themselves. They had lost their own will power and expected God to do all the work for them.

In brief: for most people, if they can run, they run. If they can't run, they pray to God.

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