7. H. G. Wells Predicted The Atomic Bomb
H.G. Wells is one of the world's most celebrated science fiction writers. He was born in Kent, England in 1866 and was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature four times. Some of his most famous works include The War Of The Worlds, The Invisible Man and The Island Of Doctor Moreau. If you're a fan of Doctor Who, you've got Wells to thank for the show's existence he practically invented the concept in 1895's The Time Machine. Wells was well-known for his incredible sci-fi speculation, detailing all manners of strange and wonderful futuristic technologies. Undoubtedly the most striking of these predictions took place in Wells' 1913 novel The World Set Free. In it, he details nuclear weapons more violent and destructive than the world could ever have imagined at the time. This prediction came a whole thirty-two years before the first atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945.
"In the map of nearly every country of the world three or four or more red circles, a score of miles in diameter, mark the position of the dying atomic bombs and the death areas that men have been forced to abandon around them. Within these areas perished museums, cathedrals, palaces, libraries, galleries of masterpieces, and a vast accumulation of human achievement, whose charred remains lie buried, a legacy of curious material that only future generations may hope to examine...."