Listeria: Top 12 Predictions For The Next Century In The December 1900 Brooklyn Daily Eagle

I hardly ever repost anything, but I doubt most of you were readers in the early days of the site when I published this one. It still amuses me.

My pneumatic tube was destroyed by a tomahawk.

I got my grubby, ink-stained hands on a special supplement from the December 30, 1900 issue of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, which bore the headline: Things Will Be So Different A Hundred Years Hence.” The papers’ editors used that section to predict life on Earth in the year 2000. Some of the prognostications worked out better than others, but the whole fascinating thing reads like an Onion parody. Here are the 12 most interesting headlines:

  • Liquid Air Will Open Up A New World of Wonders
  • New York To Be The World’s Metropolis
  • Interest In Music Will Increase Constantly
  • Mail By Pneumatic Tubes A Possibility For All Houses In Future
  • Women To Have The Ballot
  • Women To Be Homemakers
  • Base Ball, The National Game, Is Steadily Declining
  • Automobiles And Airships The Twentieth Century Vehicles
  • Man To Live Longer And Be Happier Owing To Use Of Plant Foods Only
  • Science May Find Means To Bring Dead To Life
  • International Court To Prevent War
  • Wars To Be Waged As Of Old: We Will Revert To Using Tomahawks And Shotguns

Read other Listeria lists.