Query: What assumption that black-body radiation is what leads to an accurate prediction?
Context: The assumption that black-body radiation is thermal leads to an accurate prediction: the total amount of emitted energy goes up with the temperature according to a definite rule, the Stefan–Boltzmann law (1879–84). But it was also known that the colour of the light given off by a hot object changes with the temperature, so that "white hot" is hotter than "red hot".