4. Jules Verne Predicted The Moon Landing (In Bizarrely Specific Detail)
Jules Verne is another of the world's science fiction powerhouses, celebrated for such works as Journey To The Center Of The Earth, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea and Around The World In Eighty Days. Verne was born in France in 1828 and is praised for his profound influence on the science fiction genre. That a sci-fi writer might predict space travel may not seem that surprising, but it's the level to which Verne predicted it that's truly incredible. Forget the fact that all of Verne's predictions take place in From The Earth To The Moon a novel that was published in 1865, one-hundred and four years before the moon landing it managed to correctly predict a whole host of fascinating details. For a start, the shape and measurements of Verne's fictional vehicle were extremely close to the real thing, and both were manned by three people. The weight and cost were both only slightly off. Verne predicted the effects of zero gravity on the crew of the spaceship, and that they'd wind up landing somewhere in the Pacific ocean when they returned (just like they did in real life). It's the name of Verne's ship, however, that's truly eerie. Verne's invented ship was the Columbiad, and the name of the Apollo 11 Command Module was the Columbia.
