Graphic design used to comment on global issues (and perhaps indicate future events)

Two or three years ago, I was looking through a German translation of a children's picture atlas when I noticed something on the pages about Japan. This atlas includes photos of stamps from some of the countries it covers. In the section on Japan, the authors picked a stamp that was worth 50 yen. From my studies, 50 is sometimes used as a symbol of the United States because we have 50 states. Right under the 50 is a postmark where the date is cut off so that the legible part reads 7-12-18. In the date-writing system used in most of the world besides the USA, "7-12" is December 7, which is the date of the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii by the Japanese military. Here's a photo of the stamp:

It could be coincidence, but it's an attention-getting coincidence.

That brings me to my next find in this atlas. On the pages about the eastern United States, they show a skyline of Manhattan. This is a 1987/1989 publication, so the skyline features the twin towers of the World Trade Center (WTC) in New York City. 

Just above one of the WTC towers is an arrow from the photo's caption, above which is a stamp and a text box. I'll translate the German text here since I don't have the English version of the atlas.

Plan of better cities [or "a better city"]

Turn the book clockwise and you will see courtyards, parks, and gardens between the skyscrapers.

So I turned it clockwise. (A silly thing to do since it doesn't actually change the text or images on the stamp, but, hey, I followed the instruction.)

That light blue coastline isn't just any city. This is meant to be lower Manhattan with Battery Park represented by the open space in the corner. Now note the "X" building next to the open space. To my knowledge there was no X-shaped skyscraper in lower Manhattan in the late 1980s. But there is now.

Due to its tapering, angled walls, from above One World Trade Center, which appears to be built on the site of the northernmost of the two towers destroyed in the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001, looks like a 4-pointed star oriented like an X on the city block as is drawn on the stamp.

The 2001 September 11 attacks weren't the first time the World Trade Center was targeted. In 1993, a van bomb detonated below the North Tower of the World Trade Center complex. Twice that tower was targeted, and when it was successfully brought down, it was replaced with a building that resembles the one on this stamp in this atlas, an atlas printed before either of the attacks were even begun to be planned by the al Qaeda terrorist who carried out both attacks.

Is the inclusion of this prescient stamp a coincidence? I don't know, but it seems improbable that it is merely by chance.