Happy Birthday, Futurists! A Movement Turns 104

If you see any futurists today, don’t forget to wish them a happy anniversary. Feb. 20th is considered the movement’s birthday, as it was on this date in 1909 that Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, an Italian poet, technophile, and promoter of the arts, had his The Founding and Manifesto of Futurism published on the front page of Le Figaro.

Marinetti’s manifesto was both anarchic and visionary. Marinetti championed the rise of a new age of mechanized transport and technology to usher in a blur of innovation and disruptive societal change. He also glorified war—calling it “the world’s only hygiene”—and was one of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini’s earliest and most vociferous supporters, which helped lead to the movement’s demise. Marinetti’s aim for futurism—to embrace the future and systematically predict its path—proved enduring.