Scientists once predicted that horses would be extinct in 2024

The year 2024 promises to be yet another topsy-turvy time – but 100 years ago, people thought it would be even weirder.

A list of predictions made in newspapers about 2024 from the year 1924 has gone viral on social media, and some of them are out-of-this-world.

One article predicted that beds will automatically fling children out every morning. "Crash! My bed turns over automatically and I am deposited on the floor."

Another seemed to think that horses will no longer exist. An article titled “future of the horse” said: “The extinction process may be at work.”

“If horses would decrease in the same ratio as in the last 10 or 20 years, it might be easier to tell when the last horse would give up his stall to an automobile and pass on to that room... But the decrease in horse population may not de crease in arithmetical progression, and we may still find horse on a farm near Washington as we now find a white turkey, a hand churn, a muley cow, a hearth broom of sedge, or something else quaint and rare."

The odd prediction was part of a thread posted by Paul Fairie on X/Twitter.

The headlines from the 1924 paper also included one which said men’s legs would wither away from lack of use, and another, which said interplanetary travel will be as easy as transatlantic travel.

Some predictions were more accurate than others however.

One said music concerts would be performed remotely, something which happens routinely now.

Another said that movies will be so realistic that it will be difficult to distinguish them from real life.

A third predicted that apartment buildings will be 100 stories tall. The Central Park tower in New York City, the tallest residential building in the world, is 98 stories tall – so it’s not so far off.

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