22, 1844. The Great Disappointment After the failure of Miller's expectations for October 22, 1844, the date became known as the Millerites' Great Disappointment. Hiram Edson recorded that "Our fondest hopes and expectations were blasted, and such a spirit of weeping came over us as I never experienced before... We wept, and wept, till the day dawn." Following the Great Disappointment most Millerites simply gave up their beliefs. Some did not and viewpoints and explanations proliferated. Miller initially seems to have thought that Christ's Second Coming was still going to take place—that "the year of expectation was according to prophecy; but...that there might be an error in Bible chronology, which was of human origin, that could throw the date off somewhat and account for the discrepancy." Miller never gave up his belief in the Second Coming of Christ. Estimates of Miller's followers—the Millerites—vary between 50,000, and 500,000. Miller's legacy includes the Advent Christian Church with 61,000 members, and the Seventh-day Adventist Church with over 19 million members. Both these denominations have a direct connection with the Millerites and the Great Disappointment of 1844. A number of other individuals with ties to the Millerites founded various short-lived groups. These include Clorinda S. Minor, who led a group of seven to Palestine to prepare for Christ's second coming at a later date. Miller died on December 20, 1849, still convinced that the Second Coming was imminent. He is buried near his home in Low Hampton, NY and his home is a registered National Historic Landmark and preserved as a museum: William Miller's Home. Resources The papers of William Miller are preserved in the archives at Aurora University. Other papers by Miller can be located at the archives at Andrews University and Loma Linda University. In addition some historical documents were found in Miller's home when his home was purchased by Adventist Heritage Ministry as a historic property in 1983, and are housed in the Ellen G. White Estate vault in Silver Spring, Maryland. The standard biography of William Miller is Memoirs of William Miller by Sylvester Bliss (Boston: Joshua V. Himes, 1853). It was republished with a critical introduction by Andrews University Press in 2006. Other helpful treatments include F. D. Nichol, The Midnight Cry and Clyde Hewitt, Midnight and Morning. David L. Rowe published God's Strange Work: William Miller and the End of the World (Eerdmans: 2008), as part of the