…They usually had to fight for their ideas/visions. Thank God, however, they are fighters by nature and do not give up. Without this fighting spirit and curiosity, there would be neither airplanes nor trains. The "crazies" of those days are now called "start-up founders" - times have changed, everything has become more fast-paced. The invention of the internet has made it easier for the visionaries of today to convince people. Thank you Vinton, thank you Robert. Jules Verne for example, was a visionary and futurist at the same time. It was a time of awe and wonder, with new ideas and inventions emerging daily. It was a time of profound enthusiasm, when original thinkers paved the way for innovation. It was the second wave of the Industrial Revolution, also known as the Technological Revolution (roughly 1870 to 1914), a time when economic and technological progress flourished as steam power became more widespread. Visions of the future were unstoppable. Today, Jules Verne is widely regarded as a prophet who influenced the development of many modern technologies decades before his time. In his books, he predicted many things that were unthinkable at the time: helicopters, holographic performances, video conferencing, atomic propulsion, the use of drones instead of soldiers, guided missiles are some of the topics he immortalized in his books. Jules Verne imagined the future, but always remained grounded in reality. Although he had no formal scientific training, he surrounded himself with a circle of friends who were interested in science, invention, and research. For his book "Twenty Thousand Miles Under the Sea", which was published in 1870, he made use of his extensive notes on a submarine that was being tested in the North Sea at the time. Thus was born the Nautilus, an electrically powered submarine that was powered by fusion energy. Simon Lake, a mechanical engineer and naval architect who pioneered submarine design for the U.S. Navy, credited "Twenty Thousand Miles Under the Sea" for his inspiration. Lake opened his autobiography by saying, "Jules Verne was in some ways the general manager of my life."