This article take a look at such visionaries who saw the future far before any other person.
1865 - Jules verne predicted the Moon Landing :
Apollo 8 crew members : This incident was predicted a 103 years ago before it actually happened
Verne's prescient novels "From the Earth to the Moon" and "Around the Moon" featured a spaceship called the Columbiad, which blasted off from a launchpad in Florida and carried three astronauts into space. After impressively completing a trip to the moon, the ship crash-landed in the Pacific ocean. Does it sound familiar?
That's because it almost precisely describes the first US moon mission, Apollo 8, which took place more than 100 years later, in December 1968.
Interestingly, NASA named its Apollo 11 command module the Columbia, inspired by Verne's famous fictional vessel.
1898 - Mark Twain predicted the Internet :
Mark Twain predicted Internet in 1904
Mark Twain forecast the internet a century before its birth. In his short story "From the 'London Times' of 1904," Twain described an invention based on telectroscope, a never-produced 19th-century device that was intended to use an enormous networ of phone lines to connect the world.
1953 - Ray Bradbury predicted Flat-Screen TVs :
In his novel Fahrenheit 451, the science-fiction master writes that members of his futuristic society are obsessed with large, flat-screen televisions (which didn't hit the market till 1997) : "How long you figure before we save up and get the fourth wall torn out and a fourth-wall TV put in? It's only two thousand dollars," says character Mildred to her husband. Incidentally, Bradbury wasn't too far off on the price tag either.
1966 - Star trek Predicted Bluetooth :
Crew members of the starship Enterprise were the first to use a Bluetooth-like device, a hands free communication tool that wouldn't be created until 1994, when it paved the way for mobile phones. Thankfully, the crew was exempt from roaming fees.
1968 - James Berry predicted Online Shopping :
This sci-fi writer described click-and-buy home shopping in the November 1968 issue of Mchanix Illustrated. "Instead of being jostled by crowds, shoppers electronically browse through the merchandise of any number of stores," he speculated about today's consumer trend which debuted in 1995.
1990 - Total Recall predicted full-body scanners :
The [US] Transportation Security Administration captured headlines in 2010 with airports' controversial use of full-body scanners, which are eerily similar to the one that sees through Arnold Schwarznegger's skin in this futuristic 1990 movie.
And now the master of them all, a genius who predicted not one, not 2 two but five inventions that changed the world forever.
Civil Engineer John Elfreth Watkins predicted a series of strange (at that time) inventions in an article titled " What may happen in the next Hundred Years," that was published in the December 1900 issue of Ladies' Home Journal.
"These prophecies will seem strange, almost impossible," asserted Watkins when this article got published.
Little did Watkins know that his predictions were neither strange nor impossible- most of them came true.
Watkins' predicted Inventions :
- Television : Watkins said, " Man will see around the waorld. Persons of all kinds will be brought within focus of cameras connected electronically with screens at opposite ends of circuits, thousands of miles at a span." Television was invented in 1927.
- Digital Color Photography : Watkins said, " Photographs will be telegraphed from any distance. If there be a battle in China a hundred years hence, snapshots of its most striking events will be published in the newspapers an hour later.. Digital Color Photography debuted in 1957.
- Express Trains : Watkins said, " Trains will run at one hundred and fifty miles per hour". Express Trains debuted in 1960s.
- Military Tanks : Watkins said, " Huge forts on wheels will dash across open spaces at the speed of express trains of today." Military Tanks made their debut during first world war.
- Prepackaged Meals : Watkins said, " Ready-cooked meals will be bought from establishments similar to our bakeries of today." Prepackaged meals debuted in 1945.
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How could their predictions be spot on? Share your views friends.