With the end of the year comes the time for balance sheets, but also for forecasts. And 2024 promises to be a year of great importance, especially at the international level. Not only because of developments on the two main war fronts – the conflict between Ukraine and Russia and the crisis in the Middle East – but also because important elections are coming up in dozens of countries: half of the world's population will go to the polls, and to the most important electoral events include the presidential elections of the United States, but also those for the European Parliament. And then India, Taiwan, the United Kingdom.
Precisely for the important events that will take place in 2024, the New York Times has decided to fish out from its archive the forecasts published at the beginning of other years that have shaped the history of the United States and the rest of the world.
1861
The first edition in 1861 collected stories about the year-end celebrations. But also the “war preparations,” including the South’s demand that federal troops leave Fort Sumter, South Carolina. But the newspaper sounded hopeful: “This great republic will grow stronger as the months go by.” It was January. In April, Confederate forces attacked Fort Sumter, initiating Civil War hostilities.
1929
Almost seventy years later, in 1929, the Times attempted to predict economic performance. While the journalists acknowledged that it was difficult to make predictions, they wrote that they could only be optimistic about the “fundamental strength of the American economic system.” One Chicago banker even went so far as to say that newly elected President Herbert Hoover would “guarantee to the country a constructive and capable government.” Ten months later, on October 24th, Wall Street's worst crash occurred, still remembered today as “Black Thursday.”
1939
In 1939, however, the international situation was far too worrying for us to be optimistic. They celebrated as usual, but among the New Yorkers who took to the streets in Times Square, “few did not know that the last twelve months have brought drastic changes in the world,” the newspaper wrote of Austria's partial annexation of National Socialist Germany. The article quoted a German economist who visited New York and predicted “a major war in Europe in 1939.” In September, Germany invaded Poland: World War II had begun.
1968
The Times reporters expected 1968 to be an important year. The presidential election was scheduled for November, and in imagining how it would end, the newspaper highlighted then-New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller as the only Republican capable of defeating Lyndon B. Johnson. Instead, first things first: Johnson's popularity fell so low that he had to forgo re-election; Rockefeller failed miserably in his election campaign; and former Vice President Richard Nixon was elected to the White House.
1991
At the beginning of 1991, much of the attention was focused on the Soviet Union, which was in its last breaths. Moscow's Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze recently resigned, which “clearly shows how fragile President Gorbachev's project is,” the Times wrote. On Christmas Eve, the red flag was lowered from the Kremlin and replaced with the Russian tricolor. The next day the Soviet Union was officially dissolved.
2007
With the new century, a new category of predictions was born: those about technological developments. And in 2007, the head of the newspaper's technology section made a risky prediction: “Everyone asks me when Apple will produce a cell phone.” My answer is: “Never, probably.” Within a week or a little later, history proved the opposite: on January 9, 2007, Steve Jobs took the stage at an Apple event and presented the world with the first iPhone.