The New York World's Fair of 1964 introduced 51 million visitors to a range of technological innovations and predictions during its run. Fifty years later, some of those ideas have turned out to be commonplace in our world, such as video phone calls and asking computers for information. But some of them -  colonies on the moon and jet packs as a mode of everyday transportation - remain firmly on the drawing board. Scroll down for video . Habitats of the future: This installation of an imagined underwater colony was part of General Motors' Futurama 2 ride at the 1964 World's Fair in Queens, New York . WHAT THEY HAD WRONG . Colonies on . the moon, underwater and in Antarctica . The Futurama 2 ride at the fair was sponsored by General Motors and . presented a possible vision of the world 60 years into the future. Designed by Norman Bel Geddes, it showcased it included scenes of colonies on the moon . as well as in Antarctica, huge underwater dwellings, moving sidewalks,  computer-guided cars zipping along congestion-free highways and a machine that . used a laser to cut through rainforests, leaving behind paved roads. The vision even had undersea vacationing with holidaymakers taking a break at Hotel Atlantis deep in the sea. It also had jet packs, demonstrated by men who wore them and . zoomed around the grounds, but which remain a mode of transport found primarily in science fiction. The . exhibit, which visitors rode through on a ride train, proved to be the . most popular exhibit at the World's Fair - waiting lines were often at . least two hours long. For the men who lived on the moon? Also on the Futurama 2 ride at the 1964 World's Fair was this prediction of what a lunar colony might look like . For more archive footage like the video above click here . WHAT THEY HAD RIGHT . Picturephone . At the Bell System pavilion, engineers . touted a 'picturephone' that allowed callers to see who they were . talking to, a concept that lives on in modern-day apps such as Skype and . FaceTime. At the time, . though, picture phones didn't take off, said Lori Walters, history . professor at the University of Central Florida. She attributed that to . high setup costs that made them accessible to relatively few. And at a time when many men attended the fair in coat and tie and women . in dresses, people weren't quite ready to be seen on the phone at any . hour, in their pajamas or worse. 'We were still a little more of a formal society,' Walters said. Touch-tone phones . Other new Bell technologies included the touch tone phones as opposed the traditional rotary dial. Known as the 'push button' originally . introduced at the Seattle World's Fair in 1962, this was still the . first time many visitors were exposed to this technology. Talking face-to-face: A Picturephone is demonstrated at the AT&T Pavilion at the 1964 World's Fair . Personal use of the computer . The . fair also gave wide exposure to the power of computers, which at the . time were seen as huge cabinets of blinking lights and electrodes . operated by big corporations. At . the IBM pavilion, visitors saw a computer system in which a machine . took in a card with a date written on it and gave back another card with . a news story from that date. At the NCR pavilion, a computer would answer scientific questions or give out recipes from a cookbook. 'I . don't think it's a stretch to say in a lot of ways this fair was key to . familiarising people with and really normalizing the concept of working . with computers,' said Ryan Ritchey, a Philadelphia filmmaker who's . making a documentary about the fair. Capturing imaginations: Visitors at the It's a Small World attraction at the 1964 World's Fair . Small scale, big future: Walt Disney is seen presenting a model of Disney's It's a Small World attraction from the 1964 New York World's Fair . Robotics . Another . bit of technology (along with an annoyingly hard-to-forget song) was . introduced by Walt Disney with the It's a Small World attraction: . robotic animation. That . 'animatronic' exhibit and three others, including one featuring a . robotic President Abraham Lincoln, showed characters moving in lifelike . ways, including smiling and blinking. 'This . is the first time that millions of people had the opportunity to see . something that could be described as robotic. The special effects you . could see in the World's Fair blew away what you could see in the . movies,' said Joseph Tirella, author of a book about the fair. Regardless . of whether such notions survived, observers say the fair offered a . vision of the world's potential that made it seem like anything was . possible. 'It really seems like 50 years ago, we had more exciting visions for 50 years in the future than we do now,' Mr Ritchey said. Ford Mustang . The two-seater sports car with its long hood and short rear deck was officially unveiled by Lee Iacocca, head of the Ford division, at the World's Fair, just four days before the April 17 public introduction. Ford predicted its newly-introduced  $2,368 model - touted as 'the car that dreams are made of' - would sell about 100,000 cars. More than 400,000 Mustangs were sold that year and it has remained in production ever since with Ford selling more than nine million Mustangs. Hot wheels: The Ford Mustang, with its long hood and short rear deck, was officially unveiled at the World's Fair . Held at Flushing Meadows Corona Park . in Queens the show ran for two, six month periods between 1964 and 1965 - . its theme was 'Peace Through Understanding' and was intended to be a . celebration of American industry. It . was previously held in 1853 and 1939 and a group of New York businessmen brought . it back for 1964 in a bid to recapture the past for the children and . grandchildren. Admission . was $2 for adults and $1 for children and one of the key attractions was . the Unisphere, an enormous stainless steel model of the Earth that . reached 12 storeys high. An aerial view of the New York World's Fair, Flushing Meadows Park, Queens. The show ran for two, six month periods between 1964 and 1965 . Left:  Gerald and Betty Ford with their children, Steve and Susan, ride Ford's Magic Skyway.  Admission was $2 for adults and $1 for children. Right, President Lyndon Baines Johnson talks to the crowd during the opening of the fair in 1964 . Admission was $2 for adults and $1 for children and one of the key attractions was the Unisphere, an enormous stainless steel model of the Earth (pictured) that reached 12 storeys high .
New York World's Fair of 1964 introduced 51 million visitors to a range of technological innovations and predictions .
Fifty years later, some of those ideas have turned out to be commonplace in our world .
Running for two, six month periods .
between 1964 and 1965, its theme was 'Peace Through Understanding'
The New York World's Fair of 1964 introduced 51 million visitors to a range of technological innovations and predictions during its run. Fifty years later, some of those ideas have turned out to be commonplace in our world, such as video phone calls and asking computers for information. But some of them -  colonies on the moon and jet packs as a mode of everyday transportation - remain firmly on the drawing board. Scroll down for video . Habitats of the future: This installation of an imagined underwater colony was part of General Motors' Futurama 2 ride at the 1964 World's Fair in Queens, New York . WHAT THEY HAD WRONG . Colonies on . the moon, underwater and in Antarctica . The Futurama 2 ride at the fair was sponsored by General Motors and . presented a possible vision of the world 60 years into the future. Designed by Norman Bel Geddes, it showcased it included scenes of colonies on the moon . as well as in Antarctica, huge underwater dwellings, moving sidewalks, computer-guided cars zipping along congestion-free highways and a machine that . used a laser to cut through rainforests, leaving behind paved roads. The vision even had undersea vacationing with holidaymakers taking a break at Hotel Atlantis deep in the sea. It also had jet packs, demonstrated by men who wore them and . zoomed around the grounds, but which remain a mode of transport found primarily in science fiction. The . exhibit, which visitors rode through on a ride train, proved to be the . most popular exhibit at the World's Fair - waiting lines were often at . least two hours long. For the men who lived on the moon? Also on the Futurama 2 ride at the 1964 World's Fair was this prediction of what a lunar colony might look like . For more archive footage like the video above click here . WHAT THEY HAD RIGHT . Picturephone . At the Bell System pavilion, engineers . touted a 'picturephone' that allowed callers to see who they were . talking to, a concept that lives on in modern-day apps such as Skype and . FaceTime. At the time, . though, picture phones didn't take off, said Lori Walters, history . professor at the University of Central Florida. She attributed that to . high setup costs that made them accessible to relatively few. And at a time when many men attended the fair in coat and tie and women . in dresses, people weren't quite ready to be seen on the phone at any . hour, in their pajamas or worse. 'We were still a little more of a formal society,' Walters said. Touch-tone phones . Other new Bell technologies included the touch tone phones as opposed the traditional rotary dial. Known as the 'push button' originally . introduced at the Seattle World's Fair in 1962, this was still the . first time many visitors were exposed to this technology. Talking face-to-face: A Picturephone is demonstrated at the AT&T Pavilion at the 1964 World's Fair . Personal use of the computer . The . fair also gave wide exposure to the power of computers, which at the . time were seen as huge cabinets of blinking lights and electrodes . operated by big corporations. At . the IBM pavilion, visitors saw a computer system in which a machine . took in a card with a date written on it and gave back another card with . a news story from that date. At the NCR pavilion, a computer would answer scientific questions or give out recipes from a cookbook. 'I . don't think it's a stretch to say in a lot of ways this fair was key to . familiarising people with and really normalizing the concept of working . with computers,' said Ryan Ritchey, a Philadelphia filmmaker who's . making a documentary about the fair. Capturing imaginations: Visitors at the It's a Small World attraction at the 1964 World's Fair . Small scale, big future: Walt Disney is seen presenting a model of Disney's It's a Small World attraction from the 1964 New York World's Fair . Robotics . Another . bit of technology (along with an annoyingly hard-to-forget song) was . introduced by Walt Disney with the It's a Small World attraction: . robotic animation. That . 'animatronic' exhibit and three others, including one featuring a . robotic President Abraham Lincoln, showed characters moving in lifelike . ways, including smiling and blinking. 'This . is the first time that millions of people had the opportunity to see . something that could be described as robotic. The special effects you . could see in the World's Fair blew away what you could see in the . movies,' said Joseph Tirella, author of a book about the fair. Regardless . of whether such notions survived, observers say the fair offered a . vision of the world's potential that made it seem like anything was . possible. 'It really seems like 50 years ago, we had more exciting visions for 50 years in the future than we do now,' Mr Ritchey said. Ford Mustang . The two-seater sports car with its long hood and short rear deck was officially unveiled by Lee Iacocca, head of the Ford division, at the World's Fair, just four days before the April 17 public introduction. Ford predicted its newly-introduced  $2,368 model - touted as 'the car that dreams are made of' - would sell about 100,000 cars. More than 400,000 Mustangs were sold that year and it has remained in production ever since with Ford selling more than nine million Mustangs. Hot wheels: The Ford Mustang, with its long hood and short rear deck, was officially unveiled at the World's Fair . Held at Flushing Meadows Corona Park . in Queens the show ran for two, six month periods between 1964 and 1965 - . its theme was 'Peace Through Understanding' and was intended to be a . celebration of American industry. It . was previously held in 1853 and 1939 and a group of New York businessmen brought . it back for 1964 in a bid to recapture the past for the children and . grandchildren. Admission . was $2 for adults and $1 for children and one of the key attractions was . the Unisphere, an enormous stainless steel model of the Earth that . reached 12 storeys high. An aerial view of the New York World's Fair, Flushing Meadows Park, Queens. The show ran for two, six month periods between 1964 and 1965 . Left:  Gerald and Betty Ford with their children, Steve and Susan, ride Ford's Magic Skyway.  Admission was $2 for adults and $1 for children. Right, President Lyndon Baines Johnson talks to the crowd during the opening of the fair in 1964 . Admission was $2 for adults and $1 for children and one of the key attractions was the Unisphere, an enormous stainless steel model of the Earth (pictured) that reached 12 storeys high .
The New York World's Fair of 1964 introduced 51 million visitors to a range of technological innovations and predictions during its run. Fifty years later, some of those ideas have turned out to be commonplace in our world, such as video ran for two, six month periods between 1964 and 1965 - . its theme was 'Peace Through