Predictions can be found across all fields of science, but in the twentieth century, a separate field became established that concerned itself specifically with describing possible futures: futurology, or future(s) studies. Highlighting several historical episodes, this chapter follows the development of futures studies from the early beginnings in the writings of Ossip K. Flechtheim in the late 1940s to the various attempts to establish the field in the United States, Europe, and Russia in the first half of the twentieth century. It points out that the field only came to fruition as it organized itself as an international endeavor, something that happened after the end of World War II and which drew inspiration from the global impact the detonation of the first nuclear bombs over Japan had. The chapter then proceeds to a discussion of a series of classical contributions from this era. The overarching interest of this reconstruction is to explore the historical roots of the bipartite institutionalization of futures thinking in the social sciences and to identify relations between futures studies and the sociology of the future.