I do not know of a single time period where Christians did not believe that "the end time was near."
For many people in the centuries immediately after Christ's death, it's not unthinkable that they would believe "Well, Christ's returned to heaven; he probably just has to take care of some work, and will soon return for us."
For us, we look at the Book of Revelations -- and we say
Hey, we have the internet -- thus having the tech to fulfill the live stream of the death of the two witnesses.
The Mark of the Beast? Clearly we're moving towards a society with embeddable chips; so all our credit card, identity, etc ... will be some embedded chip -- and without it, people will not be able to buy / sell.
Earthquakes / wars ... destabilizing in the middle east: yep, yep, yep.
Question:
How did most Christians during WW1/WW2 view the book of Revelation? Were most of them convinced that the end war near? Given the sheer brutality of the wars, if one squinted at the wraths of God poured out and interpreted them symbolically, perhaps they could have been made to match up with the events happening at the time.