There are so many to choose from but the unopening of Tutankhamun tomb sounds like a cool one. The pyramids being build would also be cool to know, jack the rippers identity etc
What would you chose?
What historical event would you like to witness in person?
Nice rundown! I'd love to see these as well!
I’d love to witness a first contact, but from the non-European point of view, especially in Papua New Guinea. Without the disease killing everyone off though.
I would want to see the painting of Chauvet cave. I would certainly sob.
Indeed!
Once I saw a documentary on that cave, and an odd person reconstructed music instruments from that era as well, and he even played on them. It gave special vibes.
Yea! Cave of Dreams right? I’ve seen it it made me cry
Cave of Forgotten Dreams by Werner Herzog ❤️ those paintings were made in many, many episodes of activity
yea that's one of my favorite parts. sometimes thousands of years separated the artists. i get so emotional about that kind of stuff
That is completely understandable. It’s so incredible that many of these sites hold bewildering time depth, with generations of artists returning to create. It would be such a treat to be a speleothem on the wall for the duration of the ritual and creation. 🥹💙
Not really sure why but I have always been fascinated by the idea of winter festivals on the frozen Thames, would love to see that!
Another one would be to see how some of the Neolithic monuments in Britain looked and were being used at the time.
I would also love to see the supernova visible in the mid eleventh century as we are unlikely to see anything like it in our lifetime
Reading about the Frost fairs on the Thames I must admit they sound great.
I'd like to be a fly on the wall at the Yalta Conference.
You sir are a clever one!
I have been to Yalta. They still have Englsih street signs up there from the conference held there in WW 2.
Can you.explain.more so I don't have to Google it
Feb 45, Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill met to discuss the future of post nazi Germany
Not technically historical but I would love to see the Indus Valley Civilization at its peak because there’s so many unanswered questions about it.
A meeting between a Neanderthal and a Homo Sapien to see if they got along
There is evidence neandertals and early humans interbred at some point, so i’d say they would get along well enough !
While we have no solid evidence of conflict between H. Sapiens and Neanderthals and it does seem violence was not common in the Paleolithic (at least from current data large scale violence doesn’t seem to occur until the Neolithic and a few infrequent incidences in the Mesolithic) we can’t say for certain those interbreeding interactions were consensual. So it can’t quite be used as evidence of peaceful relations between the two species, I’m not saying they weren’t, just that this exact piece of information doesn’t give us that.
We do know through genetic studies that it happened with both sexes. I find that interesting too. Did these people speak similar languages? How well could they communicate? Fascinating
Their offspring post regularly on r/canadahousing2
to see if they got along
"They're wrestling each other but I can't tell who's winning!!?!?" *hides child's eyes*
"Hey bud, you don't look exactly like my peeps. What gives?"
They reckon neanderthals could make human like sounds, I saw this week. Would be good.to see them arm wrestle lol
Or debate.
The Battle of Hastings 1066, to watch the battle unfold, the fiegned attacks, what happened when Harold was killed, when jn the battle this happened and to see exactly where the battle took place.
If the Black Sea deluge hypothesis is true, I would have liked to see it.
The discovery of Pompeii
I would like to take part in the Eleusinian mysteries which are still mysterious, even now.
I use to think about this one, until I learned Pompeii wasn't really forgotten, but more or less continuously looted for centuries. Then I updated my dream to a time lapse camera taking a photo a day for 2000 years. That would be cool to see!
If I remember correctly the city wasn't completely buried, with some of the taller structures remaining visible and looters digging into buildings. It would be absolutely fascinating to see the evolution of the area over the centuries, from the immediate aftermath to the landscape changes over the years, then the development of the modern city and the excavation of the ruins.
Yeah black sea one would be wild.
What are the Eleusinian Mysteries?
I am now imagining sitting on the Rock of Gibraltar and watching the Zanclean Deluge fill the Mediterranean.
In a similar vein to seeing the opening of Tutankhamun's tomb, I would want to be there to see the discovery of Lucy or another early hominin. Alternatively, a visit to the Angkor complex during the heyday of the Khmer Empire.
Angkor would be awesome. Imagine showing them our tech
Donald Johansson is my academic grandfather and that’s as close as I’ll get to its discovery lol
That’s quite cool! I had the great honor of being able to meet Richard Leakey a few years before he passed. He and Johansson were/are two giants in the field.
I would like to attend the funeral of the Anglo-Saxon buried at Sutton Hoo.
That was a cool time team episode!
Time team?
Oh! I hadn't heard of them! When you said Time Team I was imagining some PBS cartoon. Haha
The first farmers.
That could be underwhelming,.I imagine it was a slow development
Not sure why this is being downvoted, it was certainly a slow development.
Guy picks seeds out of his teeth and chucks em on the ground
2 months later: "ooooohhh food"
Not like it went like that but it makes me happy
More like shitting them
Many, many generations of selective breeding and habitat modification.
Probably took tens of thousands of years to get plants to the point that you could even think about it.
Yea it would be like, these idiots don’t even know what they are doing.
hey..i was there, and it sucked, we were planting and farming all day long, nothing special about it
I want to see the exact moment that Nanni realized Ea-Nasir sold him some really low quality copper.
Excellent
The list is endless but here's a handful of picks.
- 1st contact between anatomically modern and archaic humans in Eurasia.
- Gobekli Tepe in use.
- Akrotiri at its height.
- The interment of Alexander the Great.
- The disappearance of the Templar fleet.
The first interment of Alex in Memphis or the re-interment in god knows where?
Both, I imagined attending the funeral and locating his final resting place, knowing the whole story.
I would swap the Templar fleet due to my own ignorance for the internment of Ghenghis Khan.
Am I a shallow person for just wanting to watch live aid?
I saw it.
I would like to visit Cahokia, ca. AD 1200.
Yes! I was reading on Cahokia for the umpteenth time a few months ago. Had this exact thought on what it would be like to witness it all at it's peak. I then had a vivid, almost out of body daydream of being there. It was wild.
Also, I was stone cold sober.
100%. Chaco canyon or effigy mounds for me
Came here for this 🩵
Battle of Teutoburg Forest. It just blows me away that this battle occured when Christ was a teenager.
Or a toddler? Wasn’t it like 1 AD?
It was in 9 AD, and since Jesus was probably born about 5 BC, he would have been a teenager.
The Chicago Worlds Fair honestly. I want to see the reactions.
Have you ever read the Devil in the White City? Not exclusively about the world's fair, but one of the most unexpectedly gripping books I've ever read. Highly rec.
Such an amazing book. All his books are good, but DitWC is the best.
I’ll check it out. Thanks for the recommendation!
I'm from New Mexico and have a great curiosity about what Chaco Canyon was like at its peak, would love to attend a big event there and then. In the same vein- witnessing pre-Incan cultural events along the Peruvian coast in the Chavín, Moche and Paracan cultures would be dreamy.
VE day in Paris, London or New York.
My grandmother died in May, but she would have been about 15 years old in London. She was trapped under rubble for 7 hours after a blitz at age 10. I never thought to ask her about Victory Day and now I’m kicking myself after you’ve mentioned it!
I've had the same regrets with my grandparents. Both grandfather's were pilots. Both fighting in the BOB on opposite sides, and may very well have taken shots at each other.
Thirty years later their children were getting married.
Was going to say the Allied march down the Champs Elysees after Paris was liberated in WW2 - other to be amazing to be there and see that!
The siege of Tenochtitlan, the naval battle at the highest altitude in history
Hell yeah, me too. My answer was the initial meeting between Hernan Cortes and Montezuma II.
I'm pretty boring:
- The death of Cyrus the Great.
- The day someone figured out how to make hot chocolate
- Ditto, but coffee
- The invention of the pottery wheel
- The destruction of Persepolis
- I'd like to see Vermeer painting A View of Delft
Most of y’all really wanna watch people die, huh?
I think it would be cool to see the reaction of the first person to make man-made fire.
I came here for this. Exactly this. The first time I made a friction fire, I would say I was “different“ after that. it changed my whole relationship with nature and myself. I can put it in my top three experiences in my whole life.
If you’ve ever seen the Tom Hanks movie castaway, it really does feel like that. You feel like you’ve just done something magical and you are absolutely bulletproof.
Now I’m a wilderness skills instructor and I get to watch people come alive as they realize they can do it too.
I will also say, it is significantly easier to make a bow-drill fire with steel knives and nylon paracord. I occasionally still test myself by carving the notch with a rock and making my own cordage.
Maybe three years ago I started to more fully understand the function of carving the notch. Regardless, you have to mess up. A lot.
I would love to see the first fiction fire or whatever else came before that in terms of being created by people. I’m pretty sure it would be a hand drill in Africa.
I agree with this 100%. Made Eagle scout but never made a friction fire. Then i lived with a pastoral tribe for a month during college and learned from them. I literally felt like the king of the world. I had DISCOVERED FIRE
- A day in Los Millares around 3000 BC
- A week in Göbekli Tepe during its construction
- A month in 895 at the guards of the Hungarian Chief during the Honfoglalás. The event is not well documented, and I would roam the land to collect data.
Maybe when Banting first administered insulin to all those dying kids and they just.... By all accounts it was basically a biblical miracle.
Or the first Polynesians to reach Hawaii or new Zealand?
First migration of humans into North America, and then (if not the same migration), the first migration to North America of canines as companions to humans. Across bering land bridge or by sea or otherwise
A supernova
I want to see Cicero speaking to the Senate after the death of Julius Caesar. I want to see the men behind some of the greatest political skullduggery of all time.
This may sound gross, but I'm honestly so curious. The ancient Egyptian Festival of Min, during which the people would gather to watch the pharaoh disrobe and masturbate into the Nile River.
I just have so many questions that don't appeared to be answered. Did everyone have to stay silent? Was there music? What if the pharaoh couldn't perform his duty? It seems like one of the most alien festivals in time that one could visit.
I have thought all these questions about this. I’m voting for lots of noise, bells, horns, drumming, flutes, animal sounds, boats of all sizes slapping about. It’s a festival so all go and watch.
It’s beats (hehe) a public hanging no? Or burning (sorry Joan). All had festival-esque qualities about them. So odd.
I'm glad I'm not alone! It's like Groundhog Day, but the Groundhog is in the Pharaoh's robe.
Knowing the times, there were likely a few executions involved just to keep things interesting. The Pharaoh's ceremony can only last so long, ya know?
Since all the grand things have already been covered, I'm gonna have a little fun with it:
- Witness a symposium with Plato and Diogenes "battling" each other
- Was Alexander the Great gay for Hephaestion?
That's it, honestly.
I wanna know if plato really flexed his muscles to win arguments
Cannae
- The day the pyramids were finished
- I wanna see Hendrix play Woodstock
- Alexander the Great’s conquests and see Ptolemaic Egypt
I’d watch the life of Jesus and at some point tell him all the crazy shit people did in his name
You'd end up recreating Life of Brian.
I'd love to live in the city of Petra at it's height. That water system alone is incredible. But, what a sprawling place. There's something under the treasury too. I'm super curios about that!
So many but I’d start with Roswell, July 1947.
When the Ottoman Turks' cannons felled the Theodosean Walls of Constantinople in 1452. Those stout walls had protected the Byzantine capital from invasion for 1100 years at that point, with their ingenious step-moat design, but fell to modern firepower. Truly one for the history books.
Jesus flips the table in the temple
The building of the largest portions of Stonehenge
Peter and Paul arguing in early church council(s)
Jesus flipping the table would be hilarious as a time traveler. Maybe not so much as a temple visitor that day lol
Wait, the “unopening”? What?
Right, the sealing of the tomb.
Unless it's used in the Midwest sense of "unthaw" meaning thaw
Ope i forgot to unthaw the deer meats. Want some perch instead m?
Never heard that one.
A young woman in my office in western PA did once say to me:
"My car is in the shop. Would you be willing to ride me home tonight?"
The people who first built the sphinx
That's a good one, I'd like to know how they planned on moving the 100 ton obelisks to
I wanna just see daily life in an ancient city. Doesn’t matter the culture, let me see the Romans, the Aztecs, the Polynesians, I just wanna be able to see how humans are similar throughout our history
My top 3 are a bit dull but here we go:
A day in the life of a influencial judean during the Babylon exile
The burial at the royal cementry at UR - a bit grim I guess
And Rib hadda's fate from the amarna letters.
Every since I reading them I've been gripped by not knowing what was going on. He gets more and more desperate and Akhenaten won't help him.
It’s worth noting that Rib-Hadda’s letters are no longer taken at face value as Breasted and other Egyptologists did in the early 20th century. The portrayal of Akhenaten as a religious zealot indifferent to international affairs is oversimplistic, and our understanding of ancient Near Eastern diplomacy has advanced quite a lot over the decades, but popular history works unfortunately haven't caught up with scholarship yet.
There’s an excellent analysis of Rib-Hadda’s correspondence in Ancient Egyptian Imperialism by Ellen Morris. An excerpt:
Where Rib‐Hadda’s good faith becomes suspect, however, is that in the 62 letters that survive in a reasonably well‐preserved state, Rib‐Hadda makes approximately 27 requests for personnel and goods from the Egyptians and a further 37 requests for troops. On the other hand, he sent goods or military aid to the Egyptians only four times and offered 11 excuses for why he could not fulfill requests that were made of him. This is in contrast to his enemies in Amurru, who, as stated earlier, seem to have been much more conscientious about providing the Egyptians with “gifts.” According to Rib‐Hadda, the aggression of Amurru prevented him from providing boxwood (EA 126). He could not give Egypt copper or sinnu, since he’d already paid his stores to the ruler of Tyre for his protection (EA 77), and for a whole host of reasons he could neither help defend the beleaguered Egyptian base at Sumur (EA 96, 102, 104–7, 109) nor could he harbor its refugees (EA 106).
Rib‐Hadda’s correspondence with the general Amanappa is telling for it reveals that Rib‐Hadda had options. The ruler of Byblos writes,
You ordered me again and again, “Send your man to me at the palace, and as soon as the request arrives, I will send him along with an auxiliary force, until the archers come out, to protect your life.” But I told you, “I am unable to send <him>”.… You ordered me again and again, “Send a ship to the land of Yarimuta so silver and clothing can get out to you from them.” All the men whom you gave me have run off.
So, by his own admission, Rib‐Hadda had indeed received help and offers of more help. Yet from the Egyptian point of view their assistance was neither properly taken advantage of, nor properly acknowledged. Nor was it reciprocated. In two other letters, no doubt further weakening his credibility, Rib‐Hadda sought to convince the Egyptians that even though Yankhamu—the Egyptian official stationed at the pharaonic base of Yarimuta—swore that he had given Rib‐Hadda grain, he actually hadn’t (EA 85–6).
It was likewise telling that while Rib‐Hadda complained constantly about the dire state of his finances, once a palace coup removed him from office, he urged the pharaoh to send troops to conquer Byblos—adding, by way of enticement, “Note, there is much silver and gold in it, and much is the property belonging to its temples.” He likewise tempted the Egyptians with the great riches of Tyre in order to convince them to interfere in the affairs of a ruler he did not approve of (EA 89). Moreover, the virulence of Rib‐Hadda’s accusations against the ruler of Beirut was also suspicious, as it is likely that it had more to do with a lawsuit in which the two men were embroiled than with any treasonous activity that might or might not have transpired (EA 83, 85, 105, 113, 116–17, 119–20).
Despite the fact that the ruler of Byblos cautioned the pharaoh that he “… must not inquire about me from my enemies” (who apparently included his own countrymen, other vassals, Egyptian officials, and Egyptian soldiers), this advice was ignored. Thus, Rib‐Hadda was forced to defend himself from charges that he had led the Egyptians into a trap (EA 94) and also that he had sold their soldiers into slavery in Subaru (EA 108–9). Notably, Rib‐Hadda’s refusal to allow refugees from Sumur into Byblos was met with a strong rebuke from an Egyptian general, who saw fit to wonder what the pharaoh would think upon hearing of it (EA 96). Such speculation is unnecessary, however, with respect to yet another of his letters, the contents of which prompted the pharaoh to ask Rib‐Hadda how it was that he could be responsible for such treacherous words (EA 117).
By Rib‐Hadda’s own admission, not a soul came forth to attest to his loyalty before the pharaoh (EA 119). Thus, the conclusion appears inescapable that although Rib‐Hadda presented himself in his correspondence as the most victimized of vassals, in reality he was a skilled manipulator…
The battle of Crecy and the establishment of the dominance of the English longbowman would be something to see.
A Roman triumph parade, maybe in the reign of the five good emperors. That’d be a party.
The disembarkation of Francis Drake from the Golden Hind after the circumnavigation of the gold. If I remember right, they needed 17 wagons to offload all the assorted treasure, spices, and goods that Drake had amassed over the journey. The Queen’s half share of the proceeds of the trip exceeded all of the other revenues gathered by the crown in that year.
I would like to see Tolbeki Tepi and definitely South America's Aztecs and Mayans and all the others there! That would blow my mind.
I had actually already made a list, just in case i happen to find a time machine . Besides some generic period stuff (End of Cretaceous, Homo Erectus, Mastering of fire, Sumer) I have some precise dates :
Rise to the Throne of Akenathon 1355 BC
Battle of Thermopylae 480 BC
Victory parade of Augustus 29 BC
Leonardo da Vinci finishes La Joconde 1506
Tokugawa becomes Shogun 1603
Beginning of the French revolution 1789
Napoleon at the Arcole bridge 1796
The Solvay conference 1927
First step on the moon 1969
Football world cup final 1970 1970
Best recent UFO case ?
I don't think I'd like to witness the crucifixion itself, but my word would it be incredible to meet Jesus.
Perhaps the most consequential person to have ever lived. To lift the veil on the mystery of his personality, appearance and reality would be a chance I'd find hard to resist.
Sermon on the Mount or a similarly attested event in the gospels I reckon.
I believe a man called Jesus existed but everything else after that is made up , so chances are youl be meeting some dude with some good imaginative stories and most likely a twin
I don't know about Jack the Ripper... Watching some idiot mutilate women is what shitty B-movies let us do all the time
I didn't say watch him kill, just know his Identity, your mind went there
Id want to pick young Napoléon's brain when he was a jacobin and witness his first military command under the directory
I want to be in Egypt when the gold capstone was placed of the Great Pyramid. I just wanna catch the tail end of it and see what contractors were really on site.
I think about this a lot. #1 would be Beethoven's debut of Symphony #9.
Rite of Spring in Paris would be an experience as well
There are a two sides to this question, the intellectual curiosity of seeing painters discover the 3rd dimension for the first time, or watching a super structure being constructed that’s not in existence anymore would be some of the things I would jump to first.
The other side for me is faith and my lack of it, seeing any event from any religion actually take place would just be incredible.
Tenochtitlan
Easter island..
Puma pumku...
Spinx construction..
Atlantis...
Temples in India..
Civilization of sumer..
Mars with life..
Machu picho and basically all large geoglith construction..
Me personally I’d love to watch an ancient battle. Probably the battle of cannae if I had to choose one.
I just wanna see Pleistocene North America
Construction of the antikythera mechanism. I would love to see all of the other brilliant inventions that were likely around at the same time but lost to history.
Also I’d love to be present just before the library at Alexandra was destroyed, with a camera of course.
Historical - Vindolanda or Magna when occupied and just for fun The Beatles at an early Cavern or Hamburg performance
Pre history - The Jurassic period to see T-Rex and Triceratops
The day before the library of Alexandria was burned.
The sinking of Atlantis
Visiting pre-frozen Antarctica
The first visit to Easter Island.
Pre- European north America
Tesla experiments
The moon landing
The battle of Thermopylae
The Continental Congress
Atlantis?
Definitely. Plato wrote about it. And if it wasn't what we thought it was, then show me the place it was based on
Also I want to visit the lands of the sea people
JK Rowling wrote about a magic boarding school called Hogwarts.
Many seem to just be wanting to see the reveal of the Great Pyramids, I want to watch them mfs be built. I would also love to watch Neros Rome burn, Constantinople fall and Charlemagne be crowned. Storming of the Bastille would also be a nice watch.
The moment Sulla convinced his army to march on Rome.
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5mo
Yea that would be awesome, I know little about Alexander the Great, have seen plenty but never retained the info.
I want the discussions between Harold Godwinsson and his advisors that lead to his decision to NOT wait in London for more troops and head straight off to Hastings.
And since I'm there, I might as well watch the battle and up through the coronation.
I’d like to follow Alexander’s campaign from 332 BC to 323 BC.
I want to see a giant extinction event meteor hit Earth.
Sit tight then.
Lars Mittank or when coloss of rhodos was build
The crucifixion of Jesus
I just want to chill in any of the major settlements of the Xiongnu, Rouran, Göktürks, Khitans, and Mongols. And experience the silk road at its height in Sogdia and the Tarim Basin.
I’d like to go to this site I excavated that dates to 1794 on a well documented historic site and figure out why they were in a completely different area of the site than we thought.
The building of Stonehenge.
I would love to see what earth was like just before and during the impact of the asteroid that impacted into Chicxulub crater over 66 million years ago.
Putin's execution.
I would get a list of conspiracy theories, or fantastical events and just keep spouting them off until I'm magically whisked away to the ones that are real.
The first alien encounter Moses parting the Red Sea Jesus doing Jesus things The Big Bang My dad getting the milk, I really wanna know where he's getting this milk from, it's been 30 years, he should be back soon.
Edit: Im sorry I didn't see what subreddit I was in lol, I'll give a more straightforward answer.... The name Gobekli Tepe is always popping up in my mind. I gotta know if I'm connected to it somehow or if it just sounds funny. I want an in-person visual fast forward of its lifespan please Reddit Genie.
I'd would have loved to witness the first meeting between Hernan Cortes and the Aztec emperor Montezuma II. This is mainly because I'm passionate about Aztec/Mexica history. I think it would be cool to see the first clash and meeting between two worlds. (Maybe I could be a little fly on the wall)
- First Council of Nicaea, the deliberations with reasonings of why they choice certain books and not others
- A week living in Atlantis, pre disappearance
- A week working around Nikola Tesla
- The first adoption of the Cuneiform writing system
- A week after Stonehenge was finished
- A week after Göbekli Tepe was finished
- Secretly watch where Ark of the Covenant went and if it’s truly at the Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion
I have many more, but this is a start
I wanna wander around Tenochtitlan, but I don't necessarily want to see the Spanish conquest or anything. I guess if I had to be specific I'd choose the year before the Spanish first arrived in Tenochtitlan.
Sitting on an outcrop somewhere in Fertile Cresent about 60 to 70KYA, smoking something, and watching sapiens migrate from Africa.
Or in a boat, made from pine wood, wearing bear skin overall, on the shores of Beringia, about 25 to 40KYA, and watch homo-sapiens migrate from Kamachatka/Central-Asia to Americas.
And ask a simple question - What is the motivation? And compare to today's migration.
Beginning of human language
The future one of when Putin no longer has the leadership of that place.
I would have wanted to see Christ’s birth, but leave before the slaughter of the innocents
Would be very cool, beetlejuice is going to go supernova soon
unveiling of the large Giza Pyramid
Workers! MOVE THAT TRUCK uhh I mean those carts.
A day in the life in Iron Age Hallstatt or seeing the Anglo-saxons reaction when seeing Vikings for the first time
Any ancient or medieval battle, From a safe distance with binoculars of course. Agincourt or the fall of Antioch would be interesting, perhaps one of Alexander’s battles
Meteor that hit the earth when the dinosaurs were alive so I can go out with them. ☄️🦖🦕🌎💀
I'd love to just hang out in ancient Guam before colonization. It seemed like a really special place.
Idk if it counts as "historical", but seeing the chixilub impact would be wild.
The Siege of Alesia in 52 BCE.
Any original performance of a Shakespeare play, but ideally Hamlet
Halifax explosion
9/11
First nuclear test
Battle of Yamen
its prehistory, but the Zanclean deluge event, just to see the sheer awesome power of a million cubic miles of ocean filling a barren valley.
Battle of Dan-no-ura
Woodstock 1969
- Sappho reciting one of her poems
- The destruction of Sappho's works by the church
- The bronze age collapse in Egypt specifically the Egyptians fighting off the "sea people" if that even happened
- Whomever gave the order for operation legacy giving the order
- And even though it's not that important historically it's still family history I would want to be at the harbour in Cape Town when my great great grandfather arrived there as a missionary
Missoula Floods, would be amazing l to see em scouring some scablands.
The moment the Spanish first saw Mexico City (sorry, can’t remember the full spelling of its real name), in all its splendor before they ruined it.
I want to see the great pyramid being built.
First use of the wheel.
Being able to see Siddhartha Guatama in life would be amazing
I would love to see the American founding fathers discussing the final draft of the constitution. All the pros and cons would be fascinating.
I'd like to see the first meeting of Cortes and Moctezuma, or Alexander marching into Babylon.
After watching Napoleon: some of those battles from atop a hill like the Battle of Waterloo
I would like to have witnessed from a safe distance the volcano or volcanoes that triggered the dark ages from 536 AD
The emergence of ASI.
Would love to see the Pacific Northwest covered in glaciers and then jump about as they melted and created some awesome scars and deposits amongst the land. Capture and record all data for analysis since we’ll need it ASAP before we go hotter and we hope the earth can slap us back into the next ice age.
In no particular order:
Seeing the life of my ancestors.
The Paris World Fair of 1889.
The construction of King Solomon’s Temple.
The Great Library of Alexandria.
Ancient Egypt at its peak.
Witnessing Alfred The Great defeat the Danes.
Seeing Beowulf told at an Anglo Saxon Royal Hall.
Seeing the premiere of Beethoven’s great Symphonies (especially his 5th and 9th).
The battle of Thermopylae
the fall of the american government
any glimpse into pre european america would be amazing
Top of the list would be the entire sequence of events that culminated in the excavation of the "Laocoön and His Sons" in 1506.
https://smarthistory.org/athanadoros-hagesandros-and-polydoros-of-rhodes-laocoon-and-his-sons/
The second would be watching Santa Claus open-hand slap Arius at the First Council of Nicea in 325 CE. Even though it's probably embellished, it's worth a look. https://www.roger-pearse.com/weblog/2015/02/28/did-st-nicholas-of-myra-santa-claus-punch-arius-at-the-council-of-nicaea/
The last would be the Valladolid Debates in 1550, so I could tell Sepulveda to have a Coke and smile and shut the f*#k up. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000fgmw
Jesus dying on the cross.
Not history but prehistory.. interactions between modern humans and Neanderthals
Birth, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth
I'd probably skip the death but seeing (or failing to see) the resurrection would certainly settle some theological arguments.
Odin walking down to the bottom of Yggdrasil to consult the giant Mirmir to learn from him the runes that will change his destiny so he won't be killed by the wolf Fenrir at Ragnarök...
Or... let's say witnessing Norse people who told these stories to eachother as actual believers. Not for the sake of seeing human sacrifice or any form of brutality, but to experience what the people were like, what kind of energy they had, how the myth they were immersed in made them view life and the world.
Generally, I am even more interested in witnessing the actual people than seeing buildings finished (as amazing as that would be).
Also very tempting:
- Babylonian New Year's celebration
- games in the Collosseum
- the burial of a pharaoh in Ancient Egypt
Cliche but an event at the Coliseum, a Viking - Anglo Saxon battle, and a large scale Aztec ceremony.
The printing of the first book. I’d convince them to print something fact based like an encyclopedia instead of religious fiction.
The assassination of JFK
Moon Landing
The Resurrection
Last day of the dinosaurs
JFK Assassination
Battle of Gettysburg
Just out of sheer curiosity, the asteroid that allegedly killed off the dinosaurs.
The moment members of a Spanish fleet met face to face with an indigenous culture in Latin America.
A gladiator battle at the Colosseum.
A jousting match in medieval Europe.