Back in the year 1960, an edition of the BBC current affairs programme Panorama presented an interesting, if not innovative idea. The trio of 'giants of British broadcasting' who hosted Panorama at that time - Richard Dimbleby, Robin Day and James Mossman conducted a series of interviews with experts to build a picture of what those people saw as the challenges of the coming decade, coming innovations and how the world would change. Amongst those interviewed were the likes of the President of India, Jawaharlal Nehru (who would die just four years after the programme was made)and the astronomer Bernard Lovell.
In May 2008 on BBC4, this fascinating hour long special edition of Panorama was broadcast. "The Challenge of the 60s" harks back to that earlier programme as a new panel of experts including the likes of former foreign secretary Douglas Hurd, diplomat Christopher Mallaby and (most extraordinarily) Lovell himself (who would die four years after THIS programme was made) are gathered together and first of all asked to assess the predictions that were made back in 1960. Did the experts back then get it right, if not why not and if so did they correctly predict the influence such developments would have on mankind.
Secondly, and in my opinion just as interestingly, the panellists reflect on their own personal memories and experiences of some of the most important events of the 1960s - such as the moon-landings and the Cuban missile crisis.
This entire programme from beginning to end is absolutely fascinating. It would be totally ridiculous of me to write here a detailed account of the predictions that were made and whether those predictions were correct or not. If you can track this programme down then do so.