Today we largely take international air travel for granted. Every major city in the world is little more than a hop, skip, and jump away. But what was it actually like to fly halfway around the world in the 1930s, when the very concept was still novel? Pretty incredible, as it turns out—provided you could afford it.
     |
If you opened a 101-year-old time capsule and found a mysterious package addressed to the descendants of an unknown man, would you open it? That’s the question a church in Michigan now faces after they recently cracked open a time capsule from 1912, and found something they couldn’t quite explain.
| |
Counterculture icon Timothy Leary was a longtime advocate of drug use as a way to expand minds. "Turn on, tune in, drop out," became one of his most popular phrases in the 1960s. But in 1987 Leary predicted that people of the 21st century wouldn’t need "old fashioned" drugs anymore. Instead, we’d all be using "brain radios" to alter consciousness.
| |
Americans have long had an obsession with the West — as much an idea as it is a physical place. Even if you risked getting lost
| |
Fears over "designer babies" were common long before we understood the science of genetics well enough to actually produce them. For many, the idea of predetermining a child’s eye color or trying to influence their intelligence or athletic prowess through genetics is the very definition of dystopia. It probably doesn’t help that we once equated embryo manipulation with shopping for plant seeds.
| |
Illustrated by Richard Arbib in 1972, this enormous "leisure-mobile" of the future was called the GM Bonanza. It looks like it wouldn’t have done very well during the 1970’s oil crisis. Or at any time when fuel is more than $.03 per gallon, really. [Image scanned from the 2006 book Driving Through Futures Past.]
| |
Last night I walked into my local Blockbuster and bought their "Next Register Please" sign. They were selling it for $5. The whole process felt like buying a corpse. Or, at the very least, a corpse’s cufflinks.
| |
Remember 1986? My memories of the time are a bit hazy, since I was just three years old and all. But apparently, the poor saps of the mid-1980s didn’t even have streaming HD movies pouring through their internet tubes. The horror!
| |
New York City at the turn of the 20th century was a pretty pungent place. Piles of garbage, millions of people cooking food, and about 2.5 million pounds of horse manure emptied into the streets per day will do that to a city. And don’t forget the 420,000 gallons of horse urine flowing through the streets each week. But some forward-thinking New Yorkers had an idea to clean up the city: establish a citywide central vacuum system.
| |
Palm trees and lower heating bills in Chicago? Bikinis and orange blossoms in Duluth? Back in 1958 these miracles were the promise of tomorrow, thanks to the hot new science of weather control
| |
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
