• <p>It’s easier to read into the <strong>past</strong> than predict the <strong>future</strong>. Yet, these <strong>predictions</strong> announced events that actually occurred thereafter...</p>
  • <p>In her book Messages: Signs, Visits, and Premonitions from Loved Ones Lost on 9/11, the widow of a victim of the September 11, 2001 attacks declared that many victims had premonitions on the subject of this murderous day. Her husband had vertigo the morning of the attacks while on his way to work. And well before the 11th of September, he often said he didn’t see himself living beyond the year 2001. He even spent an entire family reunion talking about the possibility of an attack on the World Trade Center towers, and ways to evacuate them.</p>
  • <p>In 1898, writer Morgan Robertson published the novella The Wreck of The Titan, which tells the story of the sinking of a cruise ship. He described how the lack of rescue boats meant many passengers were unable to evacuate. His description strangely resembled the events that took place during the sinking of the Titanic on April 15, 1912, 14 years after the publication of the novella by Morgan Robertson. When he published his novella, the Titanic didn't even exist yet.</p>
  • <p>Early in 2009, researcher Giampaolo Giuliani announced that an earthquake would hit Italian city L'Aquila on Sunday, March 29th of that year. Although nothing happened on that day, one week later on April 6th, the city was destroyed by an earthquake rated 6.3 on the magnitude scale, causing the death of 308 residents. Still, the scientific community maintains that it isn’t possible to predict earthquakes in the short term. Giampaolo Giuliani himself continues to insist that radon 222 gas emissions indicate an earthquake will occur within days. He is still the only person to maintain this.</p>
  • <p>Actress Sharon Tate had hallucinations a few months before she was murdered by Charles Manson. The then-wife of director Roman Polanski stated that she saw her own body assassinated and prostrate in her home. In 1969, Manson killed her in her Los Angeles residence, while eight months pregnant.</p>
  • <p>Abraham Lincoln had several premonitions regarding his own death. A few days before he was killed, the 16th president of the United States told his bodyguard about a dream he had had. He said he saw himself walking toward the White House until he met a group of tearful people... and a body surrounded by soldiers. When Abraham Lincoln, in his dream, asked the solider who the lifeless person was, the soldier told him it was the president of the United States who had just been assassinated.</p>
  • <p>The movie Knowing released in 2009 starring Nicolas Cage begins with a premonition that the scriptwriters couldn’t have predicted. It shows Nicolas Cage’s character drinking a beer while watching the news on TV. The news describes an explosion on an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico. One year later, on April 20, 2010, a nearly identical headline announced that an explosion occurred on an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, causing one of the region’s greatest environmental disasters.</p>
  • <p>The scriptwriters of the cartoon The Simpsons succeeded not only in obtaining huge ratings, but also predicting a major event before it occurred. In 1993, an episode featured a tiger attack against tamers, Gunther and Ernst, who are in fact caricatures of the illusionists Siegfried and Roy. The two were quite popular in Las Vegas for their shows wherein they had tigers disappear before the audience. In 2003, a tiger attacked Roy, putting an end to the duo’s career.</p>
  • <p>In the horror movie Poltergeist, one element surprised fans of the movie... six years later. Robbie, a little boy in the Freeling family, had a poster above his bed advertising the Super Bowl of the year 1988, which is strange for a movie that was meant to take place in 1982. But what’s most shocking is that on the day of the Super Bowl in 1988, the actress Heather O'Rourke, who played one of Robbie’s sisters, died after suddenly becoming ill.</p>
  • <p>In an episode from the animated series Family Guy, Peter Griffin’s character talks about his performance at the Boston marathon. He said he just got in his car, started the engine, and since there was someone on the road... he knocked them down. The episode aired on March 17th, 2013, a month before the Boston marathon was hit with an attack, on April 15th.</p>
  • <p>In 1913, author H.G. Wells wrote The World Set Free, a novel forewarning the use of the atomic bomb. At the time, scientists knew considerable energy could be released, but they still didn’t know how. Wells was the first to envision the chain reaction that could be produced by nuclear fission. The attacks in Nagasaki and Hiroshima, 32 years later, confirmed his idea.</p>
  • <p>In 1735, author Jonathan Swift wrote Gulliver’s Travels. While there was no proof of it at the time, he gave the planet Mars two moons in his story. It wasn’t until 1877, 142 years later, that American astronomer Asaph Hall observed the presence of the two natural satellites around the red planet.</p>
  • <p>In 1865, in his work From the Earth to the Moon, French author Jules Verne imagined that a rocket was launched from Florida to transport a machine destined to land on the Moon. The machine was then meant to return to our planet. It was 104 years before the Apollo 11 mission, which allowed the first human to set foot on the Moon... and return safe and sound – like the heroes imagined by Jules Verne.</p>
  • <p>In 1870, Jules Verne also imagined a submarine fuelled by electric energy. It was in his book Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. Captain Nemo was running the Nautilus, a submarine able to move on its own thanks to an entirely electric engine. It took 90 years for fiction to become a reality: the American submarine USS Nautilus was the first to propel itself using only electric energy, more specifically, nuclear energy.</p>
  • <p>Polish financier Jan Gotlib Bloch not only was the pioneer for railroads in his country, but also carefully studied the consequences a war that would destroy Europe could have. He wrote six books, published in 1898, in which he describes a transformation of modern warfare. In his opinion, the next big European war would be a war of trenches due to the evolution of weaponry. The next war would be more murderous, affecting millions of victims. And the war would be accompanied by famine and epidemics, he stated. Sixteen years later, the First World War was declared and confirmed all of Bloch’s predictions.</p>
  • <p>In December 1900, an American engineer by the name of John Elfreth Watkins, Jr. published an article in the women’s magazine of the Saturday Evening Post. In his article titled, “What May Happen in the Next Hundred Years,” Watkins discussed the idea that his great-grandchildren from the end of the 20th century would be able to cool off thanks to air conditioning. According to him, air conditioning would be available in houses as was hot and cold water in 1900: through taps filled with cold air.</p>
  • <p>Watkins also predicted that commercial exchanges would increase dramatically at the end of the 20th century. He described refrigerated vehicles that could transport fruit from the southern hemisphere to the northern hemisphere, allowing consumers from northern countries to eat fruit all year round.</p>
  • <p>Upon returning from his expedition in India, in 325 BC, Alexander the Great brought great satisfaction to Kalanos, a Hindu ascetic who was returning to Europe with him. The old man requested to be killed, as he was exhausted. On the stake, before dying, Kalanos told Alexander the Great they would see each other again in Babylon. The Greek king hadn't planned on going to Babylon at the time... Yet, Alexander did end up dying in Babylon, two years later, at the age of 32.</p>
  • <p>In 1917, as the First World War came to an end, three sisters from the Portuguese city of Fatima declared they saw an apparition of Mary, the mother of Jesus. Mary told them that a huge sign in the night would arrive before a second world war. On January 25, 1938, an immense aurora appeared in the sky in Europe. The glow was so great that it could be seen from Africa and America. Six weeks later, the annexation of Austria into Germany took place and the Second World War became inevitable.</p>
  • <p>In 2012, a cholera epidemic hit Cuba for the first time in fifty years. Authorities were surprised by the disease outbreak. Yet, Eric Horvitz, Managing Director at Microsoft Research, and Kira Radinsky, researcher at The Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, say they predicted the epidemic. They had compiled various sources, including articles from The New York Times, and integrated them into their mathematical model.</p>
  • <p>Nearly 900 years ago, the king of Java, called Jayabaya, stated that his kingdom would be dominated by white men for three centuries before being run by Asians for a very short period of time. The Netherlands would conquer the kingdom during the 1600s. In 1942, in the middle of the Second World War, the Japanese landed, welcomed jubilantly by the residents who were certain they were seeing Jayabaya’s prophecy come true. Three years later, Japan surrendered to the United States and abandoned what became an independent Indonesia.</p>
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1/21 SLIDES © Photo Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty images

20 predictions that came true

It’s easier to read into the past than predict the future. Yet, these predictions announced events that actually occurred thereafter...
2/21 SLIDES © Photo AP Photo/Chao Soi Cheong, File

The attacks of September 11, 2001

In her book Messages: Signs, Visits, and Premonitions from Loved Ones Lost on 9/11, the widow of a victim of the September 11, 2001 attacks declared that many victims had premonitions on the subject of this murderous day. Her husband had vertigo the morning of the attacks while on his way to work. And well before the 11th of September, he often said he didn’t see himself living beyond the year 2001. He even spent an entire family reunion talking about the possibility of an attack on the World Trade Center towers, and ways to evacuate them.
3/21 SLIDES © Photo Central Press/Hulton Archive

The sinking of the Titanic

In 1898, writer Morgan Robertson published the novella The Wreck of The Titan, which tells the story of the sinking of a cruise ship. He described how the lack of rescue boats meant many passengers were unable to evacuate. His description strangely resembled the events that took place during the sinking of the Titanic on April 15, 1912, 14 years after the publication of the novella by Morgan Robertson. When he published his novella, the Titanic didn't even exist yet.
4/21 SLIDES © Photo Franco Origlia/Getty Images

L'Aquila earthquake

Early in 2009, researcher Giampaolo Giuliani announced that an earthquake would hit Italian city L'Aquila on Sunday, March 29th of that year. Although nothing happened on that day, one week later on April 6th, the city was destroyed by an earthquake rated 6.3 on the magnitude scale, causing the death of 308 residents. Still, the scientific community maintains that it isn’t possible to predict earthquakes in the short term. Giampaolo Giuliani himself continues to insist that radon 222 gas emissions indicate an earthquake will occur within days. He is still the only person to maintain this.
5/21 SLIDES © Photo Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

Sharon Tate’s premonition

Actress Sharon Tate had hallucinations a few months before she was murdered by Charles Manson. The then-wife of director Roman Polanski stated that she saw her own body assassinated and prostrate in her home. In 1969, Manson killed her in her Los Angeles residence, while eight months pregnant.
6/21 SLIDES © Photo Alexander Gardner/Getty Images

Abraham Lincoln's murder

Abraham Lincoln had several premonitions regarding his own death. A few days before he was killed, the 16th president of the United States told his bodyguard about a dream he had had. He said he saw himself walking toward the White House until he met a group of tearful people... and a body surrounded by soldiers. When Abraham Lincoln, in his dream, asked the solider who the lifeless person was, the soldier told him it was the president of the United States who had just been assassinated.
7/21 SLIDES © Photo AP Photo/Gerald Herbert, File

The Gulf of Mexico disaster

The movie Knowing released in 2009 starring Nicolas Cage begins with a premonition that the scriptwriters couldn’t have predicted. It shows Nicolas Cage’s character drinking a beer while watching the news on TV. The news describes an explosion on an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico. One year later, on April 20, 2010, a nearly identical headline announced that an explosion occurred on an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, causing one of the region’s greatest environmental disasters.
8/21 SLIDES © Photo REUTERS/Ethan Miller

A tiger attack

The scriptwriters of the cartoon The Simpsons succeeded not only in obtaining huge ratings, but also predicting a major event before it occurred. In 1993, an episode featured a tiger attack against tamers, Gunther and Ernst, who are in fact caricatures of the illusionists Siegfried and Roy. The two were quite popular in Las Vegas for their shows wherein they had tigers disappear before the audience. In 2003, a tiger attacked Roy, putting an end to the duo’s career.
9/21 SLIDES © Photo ABC Photo Archives/ABC via Getty Images

Poltergeist announced the death of an actress

In the horror movie Poltergeist, one element surprised fans of the movie... six years later. Robbie, a little boy in the Freeling family, had a poster above his bed advertising the Super Bowl of the year 1988, which is strange for a movie that was meant to take place in 1982. But what’s most shocking is that on the day of the Super Bowl in 1988, the actress Heather O'Rourke, who played one of Robbie’s sisters, died after suddenly becoming ill.
10/21 SLIDES © Photo REUTERS/Dan Lampariello

The Boston marathon attack

In an episode from the animated series Family Guy, Peter Griffin’s character talks about his performance at the Boston marathon. He said he just got in his car, started the engine, and since there was someone on the road... he knocked them down. The episode aired on March 17th, 2013, a month before the Boston marathon was hit with an attack, on April 15th.
11/21 SLIDES © Photo Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty images

The first nuclear attack

In 1913, author H.G. Wells wrote The World Set Free, a novel forewarning the use of the atomic bomb. At the time, scientists knew considerable energy could be released, but they still didn’t know how. Wells was the first to envision the chain reaction that could be produced by nuclear fission. The attacks in Nagasaki and Hiroshima, 32 years later, confirmed his idea.
12/21 SLIDES © Photo NASA/Handout via Reuters

Mars’ two moons

In 1735, author Jonathan Swift wrote Gulliver’s Travels. While there was no proof of it at the time, he gave the planet Mars two moons in his story. It wasn’t until 1877, 142 years later, that American astronomer Asaph Hall observed the presence of the two natural satellites around the red planet.
13/21 SLIDES © Photo © Corbis/Corbis via Getty Images

A rocket ship

In 1865, in his work From the Earth to the Moon, French author Jules Verne imagined that a rocket was launched from Florida to transport a machine destined to land on the Moon. The machine was then meant to return to our planet. It was 104 years before the Apollo 11 mission, which allowed the first human to set foot on the Moon... and return safe and sound – like the heroes imagined by Jules Verne.
14/21 SLIDES © Photo © CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images

An electric submarine

In 1870, Jules Verne also imagined a submarine fuelled by electric energy. It was in his book Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. Captain Nemo was running the Nautilus, a submarine able to move on its own thanks to an entirely electric engine. It took 90 years for fiction to become a reality: the American submarine USS Nautilus was the first to propel itself using only electric energy, more specifically, nuclear energy.
15/21 SLIDES © Photo Neurdein/Roger Viollet/Getty Images

The First World War

Polish financier Jan Gotlib Bloch not only was the pioneer for railroads in his country, but also carefully studied the consequences a war that would destroy Europe could have. He wrote six books, published in 1898, in which he describes a transformation of modern warfare. In his opinion, the next big European war would be a war of trenches due to the evolution of weaponry. The next war would be more murderous, affecting millions of victims. And the war would be accompanied by famine and epidemics, he stated. Sixteen years later, the First World War was declared and confirmed all of Bloch’s predictions.
16/21 SLIDES © Photo Jonathan Kirn/Corbis via Getty Images

Air conditioning

In December 1900, an American engineer by the name of John Elfreth Watkins, Jr. published an article in the women’s magazine of the Saturday Evening Post. In his article titled, “What May Happen in the Next Hundred Years,” Watkins discussed the idea that his great-grandchildren from the end of the 20th century would be able to cool off thanks to air conditioning. According to him, air conditioning would be available in houses as was hot and cold water in 1900: through taps filled with cold air.
17/21 SLIDES © Photo Shutterstock

The globalization of commerce

Watkins also predicted that commercial exchanges would increase dramatically at the end of the 20th century. He described refrigerated vehicles that could transport fruit from the southern hemisphere to the northern hemisphere, allowing consumers from northern countries to eat fruit all year round.
18/21 SLIDES © Photo Bettmann

The death of Alexander the Great

Upon returning from his expedition in India, in 325 BC, Alexander the Great brought great satisfaction to Kalanos, a Hindu ascetic who was returning to Europe with him. The old man requested to be killed, as he was exhausted. On the stake, before dying, Kalanos told Alexander the Great they would see each other again in Babylon. The Greek king hadn't planned on going to Babylon at the time... Yet, Alexander did end up dying in Babylon, two years later, at the age of 32.
19/21 SLIDES © Photo Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

The Second World War

In 1917, as the First World War came to an end, three sisters from the Portuguese city of Fatima declared they saw an apparition of Mary, the mother of Jesus. Mary told them that a huge sign in the night would arrive before a second world war. On January 25, 1938, an immense aurora appeared in the sky in Europe. The glow was so great that it could be seen from Africa and America. Six weeks later, the annexation of Austria into Germany took place and the Second World War became inevitable.
20/21 SLIDES © Photo REUTERS/Desmond Boylan

Cholera in Cuba

In 2012, a cholera epidemic hit Cuba for the first time in fifty years. Authorities were surprised by the disease outbreak. Yet, Eric Horvitz, Managing Director at Microsoft Research, and Kira Radinsky, researcher at The Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, say they predicted the epidemic. They had compiled various sources, including articles from The New York Times, and integrated them into their mathematical model.
21/21 SLIDES © Photo Iconic Archive/Getty Images

The liberation of Indonesia

Nearly 900 years ago, the king of Java, called Jayabaya, stated that his kingdom would be dominated by white men for three centuries before being run by Asians for a very short period of time. The Netherlands would conquer the kingdom during the 1600s. In 1942, in the middle of the Second World War, the Japanese landed, welcomed jubilantly by the residents who were certain they were seeing Jayabaya’s prophecy come true. Three years later, Japan surrendered to the United States and abandoned what became an independent Indonesia.
21/21 SLIDES