Newspaper from 1920s predicted what 2024 would look like and some are scarily accurate

Newspaper clippings from 1924 show an impressive number of accurate predictions about what life would be like in 2024.

A hundred years ago, newspapers would attempt to guess what the future might look like fairly regularly - and University of Calgary researcher Paul Fairie has been doing some digging to collate these predictions and shared them as a thread on X (formerly Twitter).

One article from 1924 correctly suggests that 'motorcars are going to increase and multiply indefinitely' and that the cities of 2024 will 'speedways through the heart of town'.

Another states that 'people will be flying around and exploring space', which isn't true for your average bloke on the street but is certainly accurate for humanity as a whole.

Regarding life expectancy, our friends back in 1924 reckoned that most people would live to 'at least 100' and that a person who was 75 'would be a comparatively young man', thanks to advances in medical science.

We're not quite there yet, but we're not a million miles away, are we?

X/@paulisci

A newspaper also claimed that by this year, the average family’s photo albums would be largely made up of video rather than still images and that ‘motion pictures’ will be ‘so nearly like the living person or the existing object pictured that you will be unable to determine whether they are pictures or the real thing’.

But only some of the predictions were spot-on; in fact, quite a few were fairly bonkers.

One optimistic piece claimed that by 2024, cinema will have helped to establish world peace.

X/@paulisci

“With the use of the universal language of motion pictures the true meaning of the brotherhood of man will have been established throughout the Earth,” it reads.

“All men are created equal.”

Other off-the-mark predictions include humans inhabiting the moon, ear transplants, and the extinction of horses due to the increasing number of people buying cars.

Meanwhile, another newspaper warned that the world's diamond supply would have been plundered and that people would propose with engagement rings made out of a synthetic gemstone made from sugar.

Cinema was believed to have solved everything. Credit X/Paulsci

Sounds delicious.

Oh, while we're on the subject of food, another not-so-accurate prediction suggested that by 2024, 'the human family will be at the point of starvation in or near that year'.

Not ideal.

Still at least people can chow down on their engagement rings if they get desperate, eh?

Topics: Weird, World News

Claire Reid

Claire is a journalist at LADbible who, after dossing around for a few years, went to Liverpool John Moores University. She graduated with a degree in Journalism and a whole load of debt. When not writing words in exchange for money she is usually at home watching serial killer documentaries surrounded by cats. You can contact Claire at [email protected]