15 Hilarious Predictions About the Year 2020 Made Long Ago

Mail will be sent via the rocket.

As crazy as it sounds, mail delivery via missile was successfully attempted in 1959. That year, a Navy submarine – the U.S.S. Barbero – sent 3,000 letters, all addressed to political figures like President Dwight D. Eisenhower, using only a rocket.

The nuclear warhead was taken out and replaced with mail containers, and the missile was launched towards the Naval Auxiliary Air Station.

The mail was successfully delivered, and Postmaster General Arthur E. Summerfield was so excited by the “historic significance” of mail delivery via instruments of war that he predicted it would become commonplace by the next century.

“Mail will be delivered within hours from New York to California, to Britain, to India, or Australia by guided missiles,” he said. “We stand on the threshold of rocket mail.” Though we never got rocket mail, we did get something better: email.