Prophet or futurist? 10 technologies Verne predicted in the 19th century

Image: Albert Robida, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Before science fiction was even a thing, Jules Verne was already inventing the future in his novels. He filled his adventures with strange contraptions, daring machines, and ideas that seemed unlikely in the 19th century. The twist? So many of those daydreams turned into everyday reality. From submarines gliding beneath the seas to rockets racing skyward, Verne’s stories can be read less as fantasy and more as a premonition of what was to come. What follows are ten of his most remarkable visions, proof of how closely imagination can become reality.

Image: Victor Serban

In the 19th century, people regarded Verne’s stories as mere fantasy adventures. But flip through them today, and they feel like you are reading an early NASA mission report. In From the Earth to the Moon (1865) and its sequel Around the Moon (1869), the French writer imagines three daring men being shot into space from Florida, traveling inside a metal capsule. After a five-day trip to lunar orbit, the projectile lands safely in the ocean.

Although it was probably a crazy and far-fetched idea at the time, a century later, Apollo astronauts followed nearly the same playbook, proving that Verne’s "make-believe" wasn’t so impossible after all.

Image: Lena Koval

Jules Verne was probably one of the first to dream of machines fueled by water instead of coal or oil. In his vision, the humble liquid would be split into hydrogen and oxygen, releasing its hidden energy to drive engines of the future. For readers in the 19th century, this idea felt both magical and oddly precise, as if Verne had peeked into tomorrow’s laboratories. Today, hydrogen power is still experimental, yet it remains one of science’s most promising—and elusive—goals, holding the potential for clean energy on a grand scale.

Image: David Rodrigo

Rising from the earth like shimmering glass mountains, Jules Verne imagined ever-shining cities. He pictured towers of steel and glass that didn’t go dark at sunset but glowed brilliantly through the night, powered by the then-new magic of electricity. Inside, elevators would whisk people effortlessly upward, transforming the way cities could be built. Back then, most buildings barely climbed ten stories, and the idea of infinite skylines was almost otherworldly. Today, it’s exactly what we see through the window in any modern city.

Image: seth0s

Imagine reading about a ship that could submerge into the waves and roam the oceans like a sea creature long before such a thing was possible. That’s exactly what Jules Verne wrote about in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1870). His Nautilus was a 230-foot machine, armed with a library of 12,000 books and capable of sinking any ship.

Although Verne didn’t actually invent submarines, at the time of the book’s publication, they were no more than unreliable and primitive prototypes. If anything, Verne’s fictional vessel anticipated the technology of the submarines that now explore the oceans of the real world. His invention might have been a fantasy, but it was also a glimpse into the future.

Image: Maxim Hopman

Can you imagine having to hear the news secondhand in the town square? Jules Verne probably knew that, in the future, people would need to be informed at all times. So, he invented a daily news report delivered by voice—spoken bulletins that could be piped straight into homes and even announced at public kiosks. We can only imagine what this meant for his readers in the 19th century, but we can now easily relate to the news being available whenever we want. Long before antennas or TV screens, he foresaw a world where the latest headlines could arrive instantly, without a scrap of paper.

Image: Rebecca Johnsen

Many years ago, a machine flying through the sky as high as a cathedral with the ease of a bird would have seemed improbable. But Jules Verne’s imagination could go as far as he wanted. In Robur the Conqueror (1886), he introduces the "Albatross," a fantastic flying ship that can lift straight off the ground, hover in place, and maneuver with uncanny grace. Does this description sound familiar? That’s because Verne outlined the blueprint for the helicopter decades before engineers made it real in the 20th century.

Image: Windows

What seemed like a futuristic gadget in 1889 now feels like part of our everyday lives. In his novel In the Year 2889, Jules Verne describes the "phonotelephote," a device that allows people not only to communicate with others who are miles away but also to see each other’s faces in real time. For 19th-century readers, the idea was dazzling, almost too magical to believe. Yet today, we hardly think twice before tapping into a video call on our phones or computers. Verne essentially predicted FaceTime and Zoom calls a full century before the first computer was even connected to the internet.

Image: Or Hakim

Many decades before the first electric cars ever rolled off an assembly line, Jules Verne was already letting his imagination race ahead. In The Mysterious Island (1874), he described wagons that needed no horses, powered instead by rechargeable batteries. To 19th-century readers, the idea of a vehicle moving smoothly on its own was unthinkable, closer to magic than mechanics. Yet Verne’s vision sounds strikingly familiar to anyone who has seen a quiet electric car glide down the highway today. What was once a dream in the pages of a novel has become a daily sight in traffic.

Image: Geoff Maredi

Poetic yet technical—that was Jules Verne’s gift. Take his vision of music made not with violins or flutes, but with machines. In his once-shelved novel Paris in the Twentieth Century (written in 1863 but not published until the 1990s), the writer imagined concerts filled with sounds produced by electrical instruments. For 19th-century readers, it probably sounded absurd. Yet a hundred years later, synthesizers and electric keyboards defined popular music, proving Verne had once again tuned in early to the future.

Image: Tim Dennert

A ship that needs no fuel, gliding through space on nothing but light—it sounds like poetry. Yet Verne imagined exactly that. He described enormous sails stretched wide, catching not the wind but the faint pressure of sunlight itself and using it to push vessels across the vast silence of space. In his day, it was a dream almost too delicate to believe, like navigating the ocean with moonbeams. But the image stuck, and now scientists and space agencies are testing real solar sails, proving that his most poetic vision wasn’t just fantasy but a glimpse of tomorrow waiting to unfold in orbit.

NATURE’S GREATEST COMEBACKS

10 Animals That Recovered From The Brink Of Extinction

Image: Sid Balachandran

Life always seems to find a way, even against what looks like insurmountable odds. And in a world where the specter of extinction looms large for many species, these tales of resilience and recovery are truly heartwarming.

Join us to meet 10 animals that have defied the odds, bouncing back from the brink of extinction to thrive once again.

Image: Jon Sailer

The American Bison, once teetering on the edge of extinction with only a few hundred individuals remaining, has made a remarkable recovery. Through concerted conservation efforts, populations have rebounded to over 500,000 today. Bison now roam freely again across national parks and private reserves, symbolizing a fortunate success story of collaborative conservation initiatives.

Image: Kacie Long

Declared officially extinct in the wild in 1987 - with only 22 individuals left - due to a mix of habitat loss and lead poisoning from ammunition, the California Condor faced imminent extinction. Though the conditions for their long-term survival are still to be addressed, captive breeding programs and rigorous conservation measures helped raise their numbers to over 500 birds.

Image: Thomas Kelley

In the mid-twentieth century, humpback whales were hunted to the brink of extinction for their blubber, then used to make a valuable type of oil. Fearing that the species would soon disappear if the practice continued unregulated, a number of international bans on commercial whaling were imposed, and this led to a remarkable recovery. From just a few thousand individuals in the 1960s, their population has rebounded to over 135,000 today. Conservation efforts continue to focus on mitigating threats such as entanglement in fishing gear and habitat degradation.

Image: Elena Loshina

The iconic giant panda, synonymous with conservation efforts worldwide, has also experienced a dramatic recovery from the brink of extinction. Thanks to extensive captive breeding programs and habitat conservation measures, in 2016, the species was reclassified from "endangered" to "vulnerable." Despite this improvement, the species' survival continues to be threatened by habitat loss and climate change.

Image: Colorado Front Range National Wildlife Refuge Complex, CC BY 4.0

Once hunted for its fur, the black-footed ferret was thought to be almost extinct in the late 70s, with some surviving populations discovered in later years. A 30-year-long recovery program through captive breeding and reintroduction into its native range has helped re-establish populations across the western United States. But the cute mustelid species is not yet out of danger, and it is still considered endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

Image: Carlos Delgado, CC BY-SA 4.0

The fastest animal alive, reaching speeds over 200 mph, the majestic peregrine falcon was almost annihilated by widespread usage of the pesticide DDT during the 60s, becoming an endangered species over much of its native range. Since the ban on the toxic insecticide, the species has staged an impressive recovery. Their population has rebounded across North America, with successful reintroduction efforts in urban areas as well.

Image: Geraldine Dukes

The southern white rhinoceros was almost driven to extinction during the 19th century, mainly due to sport hunting and land clearing for crops and cattle. Reduced to a population of 20 to 50 animals, the species has miraculously recovered in recent years. Official conservation efforts, including anti-poaching measures and community-based conservation initiatives, have helped their population rebound to over 18,000 individuals in the wild.

Image: Josie Weiss

A species believed to have been naturally rare, the whooping crane was pushed to the cusp of extinction due to overhunting. Their estimated pre-European contact population of around 10,000 birds was reduced to just 15 individuals by the 1940s. Fortunately, intensive conservation efforts have managed to restore their population to over 800 cranes today.

Image: Josh Noseworthy, CC BY 2.0

The Mauritius kestrel, a species endemic to the forests of the island country of Mauritius, was once the world's rarest bird, with only a handful of individuals remaining. Indiscriminate use of pesticides and the introduction of invasive species like cats and mongooses pushed the Mauritius Kestrel to the very edge, reaching an incredible all-time low of only 4 individuals in 1974. Against all odds, conservation efforts managed to save the dying species, raising its population to several hundred individuals today.

Image: Alexas_Fotos

Not even the mighty Bald Eagle - an American symbol of strength and resilience - is safe from environmental damage, and during the first half of the 20th century, its population was severely reduced by a variety of factors like illegal shooting, pesticides, and habitat loss. Luckily, a number of protection efforts allowed the eagles to successfully rebound and repopulate their native ranges across the country.