Granted, these are from a turn of the last century edition of Ladies Home Journal, so who really expected them to be right about anything (yuk yuk yuk), but seriously, folks…it’s amazing how spot-on some of them were, and how radically incorrect others were. Highlights include:

• “Few drugs will be swallowed or taken into the stomach unless needed for the direct treatment of that organ itself. Drugs needed by the lungs, for instance, will be applied directly to those organs through the skin and flesh.” Today’s pharmaceutical companies make more pills than anything else.

• “In great cities there will be public opera-houses whose singers and musicians are paid from funds endowed by philanthropists and by the government. The piano will be capable of changing its tone from cheerful to sad. Many devises will add to the emotional effect of music.” All absolutely true.

• “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 “hello girl”.” Also, nailed it. We’re even better than this prediction, go us!

• “There will be No C, X or Q in our every-day alphabet. They will be abandoned because unnecessary.” Kwite an ekstreme konsept.

Predictions of the Year 2000 from The Ladies Home Journal of December 1900 [yorktownhistory.org]