1. Yellow Fever. Viral infection transmitted by mosquito bites. Symptoms include fever, pain, nausea, and jaundice induced by liver damage. It was brought to America via the Spanish slave trade through the Caribbean to New Orleans. Epidemics began in 1693, and centered on port cities—especially, after 1822, in the South. An outbreak in 1878 in New Orleans was the last great U.S. epidemic, and a smaller outbreak in 1905 in New Orleans was the last of any magnitude.

2. Measles. Viral disease spread by coughing. Symptoms include fever, conjunctivitis, and a clustered, spotted rash. Endemic in Europe, where it was not ordinarily fatal because the population had a certain degree of resistance. When it made its debut in the Americas, however, where the Native Americans had never been exposed to it, it killed vast swaths of people.

3. Cholera. Bacterial disease transmitted through eating or drinking contaminated food or water. Symptoms develop rapidly and include diarrhea, a drop in blood pressure, and shock. The first epidemic in America happened in 1832, spread from Europe. Other outbreaks continued through the 19th century, such as one spread by gold seekers to California between 1849 through 1855. The last U.S. outbreak happened in New York City in 1910.

4. Typhus. Bacterial disease transmitted from one infected person to another by lice bites. Symptoms include headache, fever, rash, chills, sores, and delirium. Epidemics have typically occurred during times of war and famine, or in widespread unsanitary living conditions, such as those in prisons or camps. In 19th-century America, epidemics of this disease occurred in 1837 in Philadelphia, in various encampments in the Civil War, and in Baltimore, Memphis, and Washington, in the decade after the war.

5. HIV/AIDS. Viral disease that originated in Africa early in the 20th century, but which was not recognized until it became epidemic in the United States early in the 1980s. It is transmitted through contact with an infected person's bodily fluids. The disease weakens the body's immune system and thereby makes it susceptible to infection by other diseases. In the United States, about 1.7 million people have been infected with this disease, and more than 580,000 have died.

6. Influenza. Viral disease that becomes epidemic when new strains are spread from animals, such as birds or pigs, to humans. A pandemic in 1918-1919 killed over 50 million people worldwide, most of them healthy young adults, probably because of overreaction by strong immune systems. In the U.S., over 500,000 died—more than the number of American fatalities in World War I, which occurred at the same time. In many U.S. cities, business came to a halt during the height of the epidemic.

1. [The American] will live 50 years instead of 35 as at present—for he will reside in the suburbs. The city house will practically be no more. Building in blocks will be illegal. The trip from suburban home to office will require a few minutes only. A penny will pay the fare.

True. In the 20th century, transportation and sanitation advances led to the rise of developments around cities. Streetcars, trains, and, later, highways made it possible for workers to commute to urban centers for work and to travel outside of the city for their home life. Suburb development grew exponentially after World War II with the rapid spread of mass-produced housing such as Levittown.

2. Fleets of air-ships, hiding themselves with dense, smoky mists, thrown off by themselves as they move, will float over cities, fortifications, camps or fleets. They will surprise foes below by hurling upon them deadly thunderbolts. These aerial war-ships will necessitate bomb-proof forts, protected by great steel plates over their tops as well as at their sides.

True. Several aspects of this prediction came true, including the move to aircraft as a central defensive and offensive weapon. Later in the 20th century, the U.S. government spent significant resources on the research and development of a national missile defense system under the Strategic Defense Initiative Organization (SDIO), established in 1984.

3. Persons and things of all kinds will be brought within focus of cameras connected electrically with screens at opposite ends of circuits, thousands of miles at a span. American audiences in their theatres will view upon huge curtains before them the coronations of kings in Europe or the progress of battles in the Orient although they will not hear the crowds cheer or the guns of a distant battle as they boom.

False. In its actual form, this prediction foresaw the ability to see "live" events across the globe and also predicted the ability to hear events as they happened: "The instrument bringing these distant scenes to the very doors of people will be connected with a giant telephone apparatus transmitting each incidental sound in its appropriate place. Thus the guns of a distant battle will be heard to boom when seen to blaze, and thus the lips of a remote actor or singer will be heard to utter words or music when seen to move".

4. The owner of a [flying] machine, or even the man who did not own one, by patronizing the express lines, could live 50 miles away and yet do business in the city day by day, going by air line to his home each night.

False. Theodore Waters of the New York Herald actually predicted that workers could easily commute 500 miles to work each day, flying home each night, a further visualization of transportation innovation as well as of the relationship between work and home as the notion of suburbs emerged.

5. Coal will not be used for heating or cooking. It will be scarce, but not entirely exhausted. The earth's hard coal will last until the year 2050 or 2100; its soft-coal mines until 2200 or 2300. Meanwhile both kinds of coal will have become more and more expensive. Man will have found electricity manufactured by waterpower to be much cheaper.

True. Well into the 1800s, Americans met their needs by harvesting energy and materials from plants, animals, rivers, and wind. By the 1830s, though, large-scale coal extraction had begun in Pennsylvania, Virginia, and beyond. By the 1910s, more than 750,000 coal miners dug and blasted upwards of 550 million tons of coal a year. Fossil fuels changed daily life in America, from travel to shopping, daily life to leisure. America's industrial ascendancy, however, caused problems for humans and the environment and in 2009, the threat of diminishing supplies is a serious concern.

6. Ready-cooked meals will be bought from establishments similar to our bakeries of today. They will purchase materials in tremendous wholesale quantities and sell the cooked foods at a price much lower than the cost of individual cooking. Food will be served hot or cold to private houses in pneumatic tubes or automobile wagons. The meal being over, the dishes used will be packed and returned to the cooking establishments where they will be washed.

True. In the early 20th century, new household technology was both accomplished and inspired by the tremendous increase in American industrial production. As in industry, mechanization and scientific management were part of a larger reorganization of work. And as in industry, efficient housekeeping was partially a response to labor unrest—both the "servant problem" and the growing disquiet of middle-class wives. A major proponent of the new housekeeping, Christine Frederick published books, articles, and pamphlets on scientific management in the home with a focus on greater efficiency, from cooking to washing dishes. This plan, in some ways predictive of the late 20th-century shift to pre-cooked meals in stores and restaurants, likely drew on this emerging ideology.

7. The living body will to all medical purposes be transparent. Not only will it be possible for a physician to actually see a living, throbbing heart inside the chest, but he will be able to magnify and photograph any part of it.

True. X-rays were first identified in the late 19th century, but were not widely used for medical research and treatment in 1900 when this prediction was written. Since 2005, X-rays were listed as a carcinogenic by the U.S. government. The author likely would not have envisioned the 21st-century field of endoscopy that allows medical professionals to see and photograph many parts of the body through a small tube.

1. Rubella
Rubella, otherwise known as German measles, causes only very mild symptoms in most people with healthy immune systems (largely a rash and swollen glands in the neck), but can be fatal or crippling to unborn children. If a woman contracts rubella while pregnant, there is, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), "an 80% chance that her baby will be born deaf or blind, with a damaged heart or small brain, or mentally retarded." Miscarriage is also possible.

This 1970 image promotes vaccination against the disease, which became available in 1969. In 1964-1965, during a major rubella outbreak, more than 20,000 children were born with disorders from the disease.

2. Diphtheria
Diphtheria, a highly-contagious bacterial disease, causes flu-like symptoms—but, left untreated, the CDC says that it "produces a toxin that can cause serious complications such as heart failure or paralysis" and kills one out of 10 of its victims.

In the 1920s, diphtheria killed approximately 15,000 victims a year, many of them children. With widespread use of the vaccine, the disease is now very rare in the U.S.. This poster dates from 1941.

3. Smallpox
The highly contagious smallpox virus causes fever, headache, vomiting, and a severe skin rash, killing many of its victims and scarring survivors. Today, smallpox cases are virtually unknown, due to a global vaccination campaign that has its roots centuries ago—the English physician Edward Jenner first vaccinated against smallpox at the end of the 18th century.

In 1809, Massachusetts became the first state to require vaccination. Vaccinations for smallpox in the U.S. continued until 1972. This image is from 1941, eight years before the last recorded case in the country.

4. Polio
The polio virus can cause symptoms ranging from those of the common cold to severe muscle pain followed by partial paralysis (often in the legs, but sometimes in other muscles). According to the CDC, a 1916 outbreak killed 6,000 people and paralyzed 27,000 others, while the National Network for Immunization Information reports that an epidemic in 1952 affected 21,000 people.

Vaccines for polio came out in 1955 and 1961; the last U.S.-originating case occurred in 1979, and the disease no longer exists in the western hemisphere. This poster is from 1963, and features "Wellbee," a CDC mascot used to promote vaccination and public health.