Futurism and glamour are inextricably linked in American history. The sleek techno-utopian futures of yesteryear—the ones filled with flying cars, jetpacks, and automatic highways—couldn’t exist without the support of this concept that’s equal parts intrigue and attraction.
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Back in the year 2000, futurist Frank Feather looked into his crystal ball and predicted that Quixtar would be one of the biggest retail websites of 2010
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Yesterday, a non-profit group in Washington, D.C. started a crowdfunding campaign on IndieGoGo with the hopes of building a new science fiction museum. Or at least a preview of one.
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The Atlantic just published a gorgeous collection of images from the 1939 New York World’s Fair
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This week in our time capsule news round-up we have an iPhone in Florida ready to make a 110-year journey, a water-themed time capsule in L.A. that hopefully won’t be a huge disappointment, and a peculiar hodgepodge of stuff in San Antonio from 1986 — including a Chili’s menu and a weightlifting trophy.
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In 1953, columnist Henry McLemore made it clear that he hoped to be dead and gone before "the future" arrives. What was McLemore so concerned about? All those damn flying machines — 20 million, in theory — that would be buzzing around by the year 2000.
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Will the year 2000 be filled with flying cars or polluted air? Push-button lunches or the start of World War III? These were just some of the predictions made by fourth grade kids in 1976, who had trouble deciding if the future was going to be filled with high-tech gadgets or nuclear war. Or maybe both.
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What would you do if your boss handed you a mysterious box and said that if anything weird started happening with it, to just ditch the thing and run as fast as you can? Well that’s exactly what happened to a poor courier working for the Manhattan Project back in the 1940s — a courier who, as it turns out, was probably carrying a plutonium core that was used in the development of nuclear bombs
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Faster than a speeding dirigible! More powerful than a horseless carriage! Able to leap short cottages in a single bound! It’s a bird! It’s an aeroplane! It’s a… jumper balloon?
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In the summer of 1927 a new fashion craze swept the nation. Called the "Lucky Lindy Lid," it was a ladies’ felt hat that came in a variety of sizes and colors. Adorned with a small propellor on the front and two miniature wings darting out on each side, it may have looked a bit ridiculous, but it celebrated an important moment in aviation history — Charles Lindbergh’s flight across the Atlantic.
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