48 Items from the Depths of History That Seem Quite Strange to Us Now

This 1953 article published in a Los Angeles newspaper is oddly prescient. This small report has a quote from Mark Sullivan, the director of the Pacific Telephone & Telegraph Company. Sullivan shares his prediction of the future of telephones, and it’s strangely accurate. He said, “In its final development, the telephone will be carried about by the individual, perhaps as we carry a watch today.”

He then went on to describe portable telephones that let people see each other and require no manual dials. The headline of this article makes us think that most people were afraid of this type of speculation. For better or for worse, it seems that Sullivan was more spot-on than he could have ever imagined.