Who Knew? Loads of People Knew.

Here are a couple of items plucked from the media around the turn of the last century. First up, an item published in a New Zealand paper in 1912.

Then there's this, of the same vintage, from Popular Mechanics.

The article ends with an ominous warning that rings true, even today. “….In light of all that is known it is reasonable to conclude that not only has the brain of man contrived machines by means of which he can travel faster than the wind, navigate the ocean depths, fly above the clouds, and do the work of a hundred, but also that indirectly by these very things, which change the constitution of the atmosphere, have his activities reached beyond the near at hand and the immediate present and modified the cosmic processes themselves.”