Newspapers that predicted the future
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Newspapers That Predicted the Future — Daily trivia Saturday, May 16, 2026: questions and answers
All 10 questions with answers and explanations. Play this daily
Q 01An old Ohio newspaper clipping went viral for correctly forecasting which celestial event, 54 years ahead?
- AA meteor shower
- BThe alignment of planets
- CA lunar eclipse
- DA total solar eclipse
Show answer
A total solar eclipse
A 1970 clipping forecast the total solar eclipse of April 8, 2024, when totality swept across Ohio from Dayton to Cleveland.
Q 02Which century-old newspaper prediction for today has come true for astronauts, but hardly for everyday commuters?
- AHumans inhabiting the moon
- BPeople flying around and exploring space
- CThe extinction of horses due to cars
- DEngagement rings made of synthetic gemstones from sugar
Show answer
People flying around and exploring space
Paul Fairie's collection of 1924 clippings promised people flying around and exploring space by 2024; astronauts really are, even if ordinary commuters are not.
Q 03Which American daily's front page said the newborn Princess Elizabeth 'may some day rule the British empire'?
- AThe Boston Post
- BThe New York Herald
- CThe Chicago Tribune
- DThe Washington Star
Show answer
The Boston Post
The Post's April 21, 1926 front page hedged that the girl's chances of becoming Queen were 'slight' but noted she was already third in line; fifty years later she visited Boston for the bicentennial.
Q 04Which newspaper predicted, a century ahead, that Bostonians would get their morning paper by pneumatic tube?
- AThe Boston Globe
- BThe Boston Transcript
- CThe Boston Journal
- DThe Boston Herald
Show answer
The Boston Globe
The Globe imagined a Boston of the year 2000 where the morning paper arrived each day by tube rather than by newsboy.
Q 05What did Daily Mail founder Alfred Harmsworth foresee for twentieth-century newspapers?
- AThe widespread use of color photography
- BThe use of pneumatic tubes for delivery
- CThe rise of national newspapers
- DThe decline of print journalism due to radio
Show answer
The rise of national newspapers
Alfred Harmsworth foresaw the rise of national newspapers, saying 'We are entering the century of combination and centralization', when most papers were still local.
Q 06Which US newspaper chain made a concept video of a flat news tablet sixteen years before the iPad?
- AGannett
- BKnight Ridder
- CTribune Company
- DHearst
Show answer
Knight Ridder
Knight Ridder's Information Design Lab, run by Roger Fidler, made the video; Fidler had first sketched a tablet newspaper in 1981, three decades before Apple's iPad.
Q 07Which British inventor predicted in the 1920s that 'automatic telephones' would always reach the right number?
- AJ.B.S. Haldane
- BOliver Lodge
- CGuglielmo Marconi
- DArchibald Low
Show answer
Archibald Low
Archibald Low's 1925 book The Future also foresaw radio alarm clocks and moving pavements, and Low himself had built the first powered drone.
Q 08What did inventor Archibald Low forecast in the 1920s would replace 'the picture paper'?
- AA home film projector
- BA television machine
- CA telegraph printer
- DA picture postcard service
Show answer
A television machine
Archibald Low said home loudspeakers and a television machine would replace the picture paper, bringing news and on-demand entertainment at the press of a button.
Q 09What did John Elfreth Watkins forecast, a century ahead, would let newspapers print battle snapshots within an hour?
- AWireless telegraphy
- BPhoto telegraphy
- CMoving pictures
- DTelephones with video capabilities
Show answer
Photo telegraphy
Photo telegraphy: Watkins's 1900 Ladies' Home Journal piece said photographs would be telegraphed from any distance, and that rays of coloured light would speed plants' growth.
Q 10What personal communication devices did Nikola Tesla foresee in a 1909 New York Times interview?
- APocket-sized radios for entertainment
- BPersonal computing devices for data processing
- CPortable wireless telephones
- DHandheld video recorders
Show answer
Portable wireless telephones
Tesla described 'an inexpensive instrument not bigger than a watch' that would let its bearer hear across thousands of miles on sea or land, and the interview was reprinted in Popular Mechanics that October.
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