Jehovah's Witnesses have a distinctive eschatological chronology in which key events are interpreted as already having occurred. They teach that Christ's 'second coming' (parousia—a Greek word they translate as 'presence' rather than 'coming') began in 1914, when he was enthroned as King in heaven. This was an invisible event, not a visible return to earth. The 'sign' of Matthew 24 (wars, famines, earthquakes, pandemics, global preaching) began to be fulfilled after 1914 as evidence of Christ's invisible presence.

Jehovah's Witnesses teach that the visible, cataclysmic event still to come is Armageddon (Revelation 16:16)—the battle in which Jehovah, through Christ, will destroy all of Satan's political, religious, and commercial systems and all humans who have not aligned with Jehovah's organization. Armageddon will be followed immediately by the thousand-year reign of Christ and the 144,000, during which paradise conditions will be established on earth. The Watch Tower Society's history of specific date predictions (1914, 1925, 1975) for Armageddon's arrival—all of which failed—is a matter of significant historical record.