"So many centuries after the Creation, it is unlikely that anyone could find hitherto unknown lands of any value."
Spanish Royal Commission, rejecting Christopher Columbus' proposal to sail west.
Napoleon, about Robert Fultons plans to make a Steamboat.
"I believe in the horse. The automobile is merely a passing phenomonon."
Emperor Wilhelm II
"Airplanes suffers from so many technical faults that it is only a matter of time before any reasonable man realizes that they are useless!"
Scientific American (1910)
"Everything that can be invented has been invented."
Attributed to Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. Office of Patents, 1899.
Hat tip to http://www.rudyh.org/index.htm
8 comments:
Here's a couple from 1999:
Jr will be president of the USofA by appointment of the Federal Supreme Court
Americans will refuse to use banking machines without paper receipts but will accept paperless voting machines
After outgoing President Clinton stated to Jr that his No 1 concern would be terroism, Jr will get a warning raised to the level of a PDB that Bin Laden is going to attack America, but will stay on vacation and Cheney will never convene his counter-terrorism council, and they won't scrabble fighter jets 'till hours after the first plane goes off course, and Jr will then ignore Bin Laden and attack Saddam ... And prior to this, Al Gore will cast the deciding vote against his own presidency
Anti-Gay, Gay (R)epublican Homo Phobes will 'convert' oxymoronisms to accurate political commnetary
In 2006 after boastfully claiming his heavenly Fathe(R) of a higher order was a better foreign policy analyst than his earthly father, Jr will inadverantly discover one of the 10 Commandments and more quietly look to more secular realms to have his prayers answered
Snerd
"the swiss keep the time." - daniel miller, c. 1975, on the future of casio.
KEvron
How about 1911 and the "unsinkable Titanic"?
"Drill for oil? You mean drill into the ground to try and find oil? You're crazy." – Associates of Edwin L. Drake refusing his suggestion to drill for oil in 1859.
I wish they had listened in this case.
Bun Bun.
"A rocket will never be able to leave the Earth's atmosphere." – New York Times, 1936.
These are fun.
"The case is a loser." – Johnnie Cochran, on soon-to-be client O.J.’s chances of winning, 1994.
What can I possibly add to this?
T2
This blog will self-destruct in 5 minutes...
tick, tick, tick...
"The Internet is a passing fad." BlueHoosier's brother-in-law, c. 1999
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