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Predictions for the 21st Century made by Ladies Home Journal circa 1900
Posted: 19 April 2007 07:23 AM   [ Ignore ]
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Some of these are hysterical, but others are eerily accurate

The Ladies Home Journal from December 1900, which contained a fascinating article by John Elfreth Watkins, Jr.

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Posted: 19 April 2007 07:24 AM   [ Ignore ]   [ # 1 ]
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Prediction #10:  Man will See Around the World. Persons and things of all kinds will be brought within focus of cameras connected electrically with screens at opposite ends of circuits, thousands of miles at a span. American audiences in their theatres will view upon huge curtains before them the coronations of kings in Europe or the progress of battles in the Orient. The instrument bringing these distant scenes to the very doors of people will be connected with a giant telephone apparatus transmitting each incidental sound in its appropriate place. Thus the guns of a distant battle will be heard to boom when seen to blaze, and thus the lips of a remote actor or singer will be heard to utter words or music when seen to move.

Prediction #11: No Mosquitoes nor Flies.  Insect screens will be unnecessary.  Mosquitoes, house-flies and roaches will have been practically exterminated.  Boards of health will have destroyed all mosquito haunts and breeding-grounds, drained all stagnant pools, filled in all swamp-lands, and chemically treated all still-water streams.  The extermination of the horse and its stable will reduce the house-fly.

Prediction #12:  Peas as Large as Beets.  Peas and beans will be as large as beets are to-day.  Sugar cane will produce twice as much sugar as the sugar beet now does.  Cane will once more be the chief source of our sugar supply.  The milkweed will have been developed into a rubber plant.  Cheap native rubber will be harvested by machinery all over this country.  Plants will be made proof against disease microbes just as readily as man is to-day against smallpox.  The soil will be kept enriched by plants which take their nutrition from the air and give fertility to the earth.

Prediction #13:  Strawberries as Large as Apples will be eaten by our great-great-grandchildren for their Christmas dinners a hundred years hence.  Raspberries and blackberries will be as large.  One will suffice for the fruit course of each person.  Strawberries and cranberries will be grown upon tall bushes.  Cranberries, gooseberries and currants will be as large as oranges.  One cantaloupe will supply an entire family.  Melons, cherries, grapes, plums, apples, pears, peaches and all berries will be seedless.  Figs will be cultivated over the entire United States.

Prediction #14:  Black, Blue and Green Roses.  Roses will be as large as cabbage heads.  Violets will grow to the size of orchids.  A pansy will be as large in diameter as a sunflower.  A century ago the pansy measured but half an inch across its face.  There will be black, blue and green roses.  It will be possible to grow any flower in any color and to transfer the perfume of a scented flower to another which is odorless.  Then may the pansy be given the perfume of the violet.

Prediction #15:  No Foods will be Exposed.  Storekeepers who expose food to air breathed out by patrons or to the atmosphere of the busy streets will be arrested with those who sell stale or adulterated produce.  Liquid-air refrigerators will keep great quantities of food fresh for long intervals.

Prediction #16: There will be No C, X or Q in our every-day alphabet. They will be abandoned because unnecessary. Spelling by sound will have been adopted, first by the newspapers. English will be a language of condensed words expressing condensed ideas, and will be more extensively spoken than any other. Russian will rank second.

Prediction #17: How Children will be Taught. A university education will be free to every man and woman. Several great national universities will have been established. Children will study a simple English grammar adapted to simplified English, and not copied after the Latin. Time will be saved by grouping like studies. Poor students will be given free board, free clothing and free books if ambitious and actually unable to meet their school and college expenses. Medical inspectors regularly visiting the public schools will furnish poor children free eyeglasses, free dentistry and free medical attention of every kind. The very poor will, when necessary, get free rides to and from school and free lunches between sessions. In vacation time poor children will be taken on trips to various parts of the world. Etiquette and housekeeping will be important studies in the public schools.

Prediction #18: Telephones Around the World. Wireless telephone and telegraph circuits will span the world. A husband in the middle of the Atlantic will be able to converse with his wife sitting in her boudoir in Chicago. We will be able to telephone to China quite as readily as we now talk from New York to Brooklyn. By an automatic signal they will connect with any circuit in their locality without the intervention of a

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Posted: 19 April 2007 07:25 AM   [ Ignore ]   [ # 2 ]
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Prediction #20:  Coal will not be used for heating or cooking. It will be scarce, but not entirely exhausted. The earth

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Posted: 19 April 2007 07:26 AM   [ Ignore ]   [ # 3 ]
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Boo’s not gonna like this one. Madmouse neither smile

Prediction #28:  There will be no wild animals except in menageries. Rats and mice will have been exterminated. The horse will have become practically extinct. A few of high breed will be kept by the rich for racing, hunting and exercise. The automobile will have driven out the horse. Cattle and sheep will have no horns. They will be unable to run faster than the fattened hog of today. A century ago the wild hog could outrun a horse. Food animals will be bred to expend practically all of their life energy in producing meat, milk, wool and other by-products. Horns, bones, muscles and lungs will have been neglected.

Prediction #29: To England in Two Days. Fast electric ships, crossing the ocean at more than a mile a minute, will go from New York to Liverpool in two days. The bodies of these ships will be built above the waves. They will be supported upon runners, somewhat like those of the sleigh. These runners will be very buoyant. Upon their under sides will be apertures expelling jets of air. In this way a film of air will be kept between them and the water

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Posted: 19 April 2007 02:15 PM   [ Ignore ]   [ # 4 ]
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I like some of these predictions.
I wish we were that advanced.


Amazing how close some of these predictions are.

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Posted: 19 April 2007 04:35 PM   [ Ignore ]   [ # 5 ]
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Wow, those were really interesting!  Almost all of them had an element of truth to them, even the seemingly crazy ones.  Oh, and what is their obsession with large plants?

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Posted: 20 April 2007 07:21 AM   [ Ignore ]   [ # 6 ]
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A lot of those were pretty darn close.  Anyone care to make some predictions for 2100??

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Posted: 20 April 2007 08:05 AM   [ Ignore ]   [ # 7 ]
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gray - 20 April 2007 11:21 AM

A lot of those were pretty darn close.  Anyone care to make some predictions for 2100??

In 2100 the earth will be a barren place where only some ruins amidst the blowing dust will be a remembrance of the fact that it was once inhabited.

hmmm

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Posted: 20 April 2007 09:55 AM   [ Ignore ]   [ # 8 ]
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gray - 20 April 2007 11:21 AM

A lot of those were pretty darn close.  Anyone care to make some predictions for 2100??

You will all be dead.

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Posted: 20 April 2007 11:06 AM   [ Ignore ]   [ # 9 ]
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wanna use Sylvia Browne’s predictions? LOL

http://www.unsolvedmysteries.com/usm421496.html (author claims source is sylvia.org)

Eradication of cancer as we know it, using sound waves, photo sensitive drug therapy, and “self-addicting” cells.

Robotic houses, controlled by computerized switchboard.

Electrical cars with flotation ability for water travel to bypass freeways.

Houses made from pressed paper with plastic coatings; interchangeable walls

Separate body parts cloned for organ transplants; not an entire body.

New form of painless tooth extraction, using a type of suction, with immediate replacement of new tooth.

Diagnostic chambers which map the body’s electrical balance to predict health problems before the come.

Cylindrical rooms in which people enter to see an automated projection of the clothing and color that would look good on them; select what you want, take your measurements, then two days later pick up the goods.

Third floor of houses have rollback roofs to allow Hovercrafts to come and go.

No more surgery with knives. Some type of molecular ionization device that knows how to take out the afflicted cells then seal the wound without a single scar.

Remolding of the whole face structure, to duplicate any look that you wish.

New exercise equipment that you sit or stand in, and it literally stimulates your muscles with electricity to achieve the same effect as physical exercise.

Babies will be birthed in water all the time, with music, incense, and green and lavender lights.

People will be able to simply “walk out” of their bodies upon death.

There will be no US Presidency; our government will go back to a Greek Senate structure.

No longer a single Pope, but a triumvirate of Popes, each assigned to a geographic collection of Catholics.

Peace in the Middle East will prevail by 2050.

West Coast goes under in 2026. Parts of the East Coast also get inundated.

Tsunamis will wipe out a large portion of Japan. The Hawaiian Islands will have upheaval and be the site of a large new landmass.

Atlantis will begin to show itself by 2023 and be fully visible by 2026.

After 2050, the “Age of the Messiah” is upon us. People turn totally toward Spirituality, peace will rein for a long time. People will return to community living, loving each other, and working together.

Treatment for depression and mood disorders will come from a “control chamber” that emits sensory stimulation gently to the brain, including certain smells, which will elevate mood.

Medicine in pill form goes away; instead we have air-injected delivery through the skin.

Atomic batteries will run cars.

No more gas propelled rockets in space; we will have nuclear powered cylinder shaped objects that travel everywhere.

A moon base is created for people to visit, and as a stopping place for further trips.

By 2055 most people will live in domed cities due to poor atmospheric conditions.

A virtual reality headset will stimulate brain waves so people can learn whole libraries of information within hours.

Giant fruits and vegetables will be grown in hothouse environments. The nutrients will be synthesized into a highly condensed injection.

Proteins are developed without animal meat, very powerful, builds immune system.

Addictions will be a thing of the past because of a brain stimulation, which eradicates all addictions, with no side effects.

Execution for the death penalty will become a complete vaporization of the body.

No separate governments, one planetary government will form.

Great earth changes will occur and germ warfare will be used before the world finds peace. But eventually from all of the bad comes good. The pendulum will swing back to humanity and love.

No world war is coming, but lots of civil disorder and small skirmishes. No nuclear holocaust.

Peace will last from 2050 until 2100, and then I see nothing beyond, which could mean “the end will come like a thief in the night.”

Toward the end of things, the veil separating our world from The Other Side will thin, so much so that most people will see decease loved ones and speak with their Spirit Guides.

There will be many false prophets that rise up proclaiming to be Jesus on Earth, and try to lead people astray. We are already seeing this in the big rise of occultism.

People will again find Spirituality, not so much in organized religion, but in the spiritual brotherhood of coming together and finding their Temple within. Four more comets will pass by before the end times.

Aliens will begin to show themselves in the year 2010, they will not harm us, they simply want to see what we are doing to this planet. They will teach us how to use anti-gravity devices again, such as they did for the pyramids

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Posted: 20 April 2007 03:05 PM   [ Ignore ]   [ # 10 ]
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oppiejoe - 20 April 2007 03:06 PM

But eventually from all of the bad comes good.

Si vis pacem, para bellum. :D

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Posted: 20 April 2007 03:16 PM   [ Ignore ]   [ # 11 ]
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Razela - 19 April 2007 08:35 PM

Wow, those were really interesting!  Almost all of them had an element of truth to them, even the seemingly crazy ones.  Oh, and what is their obsession with large plants?

I was wondering the same thing LOL

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