The Real Story Behind Those Viral Time Magazine Covers About Global Cooling in the 1970s — Paleofuture Have you ever seen those viral images on Twitter or Facebook that show Time magazine covers warning of global cooling ? I see them at least a few times a month, but I’m never sure whether they’re r...

The Real Story Behind Those Viral Time Magazine Covers About Global Cooling in the 1970s

The Summer Intern Who Ate His Lunch on a Nuclear Bomb in 1955 — Paleofuture If you came across the photo above, you probably wouldn’t think it was too consequential in the grand scheme of world events. But this photo is indeed historic. That man, sitting in the back of a wood...

The Summer Intern Who Ate His Lunch on a Nuclear Bomb in 1955

Harry Butz and His Genius Idea For Movie Disks 100 Years Ago — Paleofuture Physical media is an endangered species, with laserdiscs, DVDs, and even Blu-Rays joining the ranks of once-futuristic technology we don’t see much anymore. But the idea of playing a physical disk to ...

Harry Butz and His Genius Idea For Movie Disks 100 Years Ago

Things to Come: The 1940s Newspaper Comic That Gave Americans a Humorous Peek at Tomorrow — Paleofuture It’s no secret that I’m a huge fan of futuristic newspaper comics from the 20th century. Strips like Our New Age by Athelstan Spilhaus and Closer Than We Think by Arthur Radebaugh are absolute...

Things to Come: The 1940s Newspaper Comic That Gave Americans a Humorous Peek at Tomorrow

Reagan-Era Futurists Thought Iran Would Get Nukes by 2020 — Paleofuture Will Iran obtain a nuclear weapon? That's the hot-button question for the U.S. government as the United Nations General Assembly  meets in New York  this week. No one knows for sure, (except...

Reagan-Era Futurists Thought Iran Would Get Nukes by 2020

This Electric Car Ad From 1921 Asked Drivers To Be Brutally Honest With Themselves — Paleofuture At the turn of the 20th century, one-third of all cars produced in the U.S. were electric. By the 1920s, gasoline-powered cars had grown to dominate the market because they offered greater range and s...

This Electric Car Ad From 1921 Asked Drivers To Be Brutally Honest With Themselves

If you subscribe to Paleofuture+ you received an email about the subscription newsletter and video perks shutting down today. Thank you to everyone who subscribed. Refunds are being issued. If you don't get a refund by Monday, please email matt@paleofuture.com.

1970s Doctor Predicted Elderly Would Have 'First Class Status' By 2025 — Paleofuture Back in 1975, life expectancy in the U.S. was just 63.6 years for men and 72.3 for women, according to government statistics . The country has made significant progress since then, with the latest fi...

1970s Doctor Predicted Elderly Would Have 'First Class Status' By 2025

'I Think in 2025 Furbys Will Try to Conquer the Universe': How 1990s Kids Imagined the Year 2025 — Paleofuture What will the future look like in the year 2025? It was a question about the distant future for those of us who were alive to remember the 20th century. But now that we’re a few weeks into that year, ...

'I Think in 2025 Furbys Will Try to Conquer the Universe': How 1990s Kids Imagined the Year 2025

How Newspapers Talked About Bitcoin in the Early 2010s — Paleofuture Back in 2014, I gave a talk at UCLA about the future of money that’s funny to think about now. Well, technically it was about the paleo -future of money. But the topic was particularly relevant in th...

How Newspapers Talked About Bitcoin in the Early 2010s

The Follyphone and Our Ridiculous Future — Paleofuture The future can be presented in a lot of ways. Sometimes we imagine it in the darkest of terms, a dystopian hellscape that shocks our sense of safety, making us fearful about what’s to come. Other time...

The Follyphone and Our Ridiculous Future

Elon Musk and the Political Profile That Did Not Age Well — Paleofuture Elon Musk spent at least $250 million to help re-elect Donald Trump as president this year, making him one of the most powerful oligarchs the U.S. has ever seen. Trump is a fascist and Musk unabashe...

Elon Musk and the Political Profile That Did Not Age Well

This Airship Went Missing in 1889 and Was Never Seen Again — Paleofuture On the morning of July 18, 1889, Professor Edward D. Hogan went up in what can only be described for the time as a futuristic piece of airship technology, launching from Brooklyn, New York. Hogan had ...

This Airship Went Missing in 1889 and Was Never Seen Again

Sterilization of 'Undesirables' Had Overwhelming Public Approval in the U.S. During the 1930s — Paleofuture The U.S. and Canada both have long histories of forced sterilizations for people deemed “undesirable.” Roughly 70,000 Americans were sterilized in the 20th century, according to official figures , wi...

Sterilization of 'Undesirables' Had Overwhelming Public Approval in the U.S. During the 1930s

This Futuristic 'Water Sport Wheel' Doesn't Make Any Sense But It Sure Looks Fun Anyway — Paleofuture Old futures are filled with ridiculous contraptions for getting around. You’ve got the automobile-powered yacht , the enormous four-legged mech-pedicab , and the gyroscopic rocket car , just to nam...

This Futuristic 'Water Sport Wheel' Doesn't Make Any Sense But It Sure Looks Fun Anyway

A Thanksgiving Meal (in-a-pill) — Paleofuture Many Americans celebrating Thanksgiving tomorrow will have a meal centered around  Ben Franklin’s favorite bird  — the turkey. But if this cartoon from the September 19, 1926  Ogden Sta...

“Cooking perhaps will not be done at all on any large scale at home. At any rate it will be a much less disgusting process than it is to-day.”

Amazing 1960s Predictions About Satellites, Email, and the Internet — Paleofuture The February 17, 1962 issue of the Sunday comic strip Our New Age envisioned the fantastic advancements that the introduction of satellites would allow.

Amazing 1960s Predictions About Satellites, Email, and the Internet

U.S. Time Capsules Scheduled to be Opened in 2025, Filled with Pogs, Money, and Even a Car — Paleofuture Time capsules are fascinating to me. They can be incredibly boring, as people often stuff them with rather mundane items like coins, American flags, and bibles. But every once in a while they can be t...

I wrote about some of the time capsules scheduled to be opened in 2025. One has a 1975 Chevy Vega inside.

U.S. Time Capsules Scheduled to be Opened in 2025, Filled with Pogs, Money, and Even a Car — Paleofuture Time capsules are fascinating to me. They can be incredibly boring, as people often stuff them with rather mundane items like coins, American flags, and bibles. But every once in a while they can be t...

U.S. Time Capsules Scheduled to be Opened in 2025, Filled with Pogs, Money, and Even a Car

The First In-Flight Movies Had a Live Orchestra — Paleofuture Soaring through the clouds in 1925, passengers on an Imperial Airways flight traveling over Germany were treated to a brand new novelty—one of the first in-flight movies. Even more astounding? The fil...

I love that some of the first in-flight movies had live orchestras playing on the ground via radio to accompany the silent movies passengers were watching

5 Old Ideas for the Internet That Can Help Us Imagine a Better Future — Paleofuture We often think of the internet as a piece of infrastructure that cannot be changed. But people built the internet and all the devices we use to connect ourselves to it. People made conscious choices a...

5 Old Ideas for the Internet That Can Help Us Imagine a Better Future

What Tech Did Millennials Predict Would Be Obsolete by Now? — Paleofuture The year 2006 wasn’t that long ago in the grand scheme of things. But when you look back at the predictions of that time, it’s an interesting year, if only because it was just before the mainstream ex...

What Tech Did Millennials Predict Would Be Obsolete by Now?

150 Years of Predictions About America's First Woman President — Paleofuture U.S. senator Margaret Chase Smith of Maine was asked on the radio program “Who Said That?” in 1949 what she’d do if she woke up in the White House one day. The senator replied: “Well, I’d go straig...

150 Years of Predictions About America's First Woman President

What Inspired the Creators of The Jetsons? — Paleofuture When I look back at the The Jetsons, a show that debuted in 1962 and lasted just one season during its first run, it’s easy to see how it inspired so many visions of the future that would occur in t...

What Inspired the Creators of The Jetsons?

Euphonia, the Incredible Speaking Machine of the 1840s (Which I Hope Is Real) — Paleofuture Last week OpenAI rolled out its new virtual assistant, dubbed Advanced Voice Mode, that allows users to have a conversation with an AI bot. There’s some controversy about the technology, not least b...

Euphonia, the Incredible Speaking Machine of the 1840s (Which I Hope Is Real)

The 'Vaguely Ominous' Coffee Robot of 1967 That Was Going to Take Your Job — Paleofuture When the Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles featured a new “coffee robot” in October 1967, the newspapers covering it sounded both excited and terrified.

The 'Vaguely Ominous' Coffee Robot of 1967 That Was Going to Take Your Job

Have Astronauts Ever Voted for Donald Trump From Space? — Paleofuture The astronauts who are currently stuck in space thanks to Boeing's little mishaps will soon be voting in the upcoming U.S. presidential election between vice president Kamala Harris and convicted fe...

Have Astronauts Ever Voted for Donald Trump From Space?

What the Failure of 3D-TV Can Tell Us About the Future of Tech Inevitability — Paleofuture When companies rolled out their latest technology at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in 2010, the most exciting new product on offer was the 3D-TV. Sony showed off the 3D-TV like it was the...

What the Failure of 3D-TV Can Tell Us About the Future of Tech Inevitability

Was This 1943's Crime-Fighting Vehicle of the Future or Just a 'Glorified Jukebox'? — Paleofuture The state of Illinois’ mobile crime lab was a 16-ton law enforcement vehicle that traveled the state in the 1940s, showing off the latest technology to police that was supposedly going to help them ...

Was This 1943's Crime-Fighting Vehicle of the Future or Just a 'Glorified Jukebox'?

Fixing the Broken Body of the Future, According to the 1980s — Paleofuture The world of organ transplants has come so far since the year 1954 when a kidney was transplanted between twins. But if you take a look at the predictions of the late 20th century, we’re not nearly ...

Fixing the Broken Body of the Future, According to the 1980s