Engineers at the University of Illinois published a paper in 1960 predicting doomsday would occur November 13, 2026, based on calculations of human-population growth; they hoped “some time, somehow, something will happen that will stop this ever-faster race to self-destruction.” One idea was space travel. “It is only unfortunate,” they wrote, “that no reentry permit to earth can be given to these space trotters.”

Charlotte Brontë wrote to a friend about a woman who “must be a regular bore with her unfortunate homophobia,” advising, “Don’t look for that word in the dictionary.” This may indicate, notes a scholar, “fear or dislike of men,” from the Latin homo (man), not the Greek homo (same). The word is unclear in the manuscript; it could also be monophobia, fear of being alone.

On Halloween 1981, a Los Angeles punk band called Fear was the musical guest on Saturday Night Live. Comedian John Belushi, who had invited Fear to play, brought in punks to watch the performance. Chaos ensued; SNL’s stage manager was hit in the chest with a pumpkin. “The real audience at Saturday Night Live was scared to death,” Fear’s lead singer later said. The band was banned from appearing again.

At a Johns Hopkins campus hospital in 1920, behavioral psychologists conducted an experiment with a nine-month-old boy known as Little Albert, who was given a white rat to play with. The scientists then made loud noises behind Albert’s head while he played, conditioning in him a fear of other furry animals and objects, previously sources of joy. Albert’s mother, a wet nurse at a nearby hospital, was paid one dollar for her son’s participation.

“I look at the jury and they won’t look at me,” testified Charles Manson during his 1970 trial for conspiracy to murder. “They are afraid of me. And do you know why they are afraid of me? Because of the newspapers. You projected fear. You projected fear. You made me a monster, and I have to live with that the rest of my life.”