When a fellow member of the Diogenes Club told Herbert he had actually built Herbert's fictional time machine, Herbert didn't believe it. Challenged to try it, he scoffed at first, but eventually relented. To his utter astonishment, he got a first-hand look at the shape of things to come.

Author's Comments: I challenge the other members of this list to devise identities with 1942, 1962, 1974 or 1999 as their "true" history headline.