Where would you go?

Question

If you could travel to any period in the past where would you go and what would you change?

Like hitting Shakespere and getting his autography as in Blackadder, telling Bodicea not to fight the Romans....

.......Or would you change nothing and just view the past and find answers to unanswered questions?

WOW! what a fantastic range of places and time periods thanks for all of your replies. Got me really wishing there was a time machine.
thanks Miri

Answer 1

I would got back to Sharpsburg, Maryland, USA on September 17th, 1862.

Actually, I would like to be there from the 15th to the 21st.

On September 17th, the Confederate and Union armies engaged in battle on the Antietam creek that resulted in 23,000 casualties on a single day.

Unbelievable!


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/local/longterm/tours/civilwar/antietam.htm



g-day!

Answer 2

Miri,
this is a very interesting question that you pose. As a person that enjoys history and politics I can tell you there is a "smorgasboard" of offerings within thinking of this question.

First, I would change nothing - I would just "view" it in person and find answers to questions. I would like to have seen Winston Churchill give his address to the American Congress in the days near the middle portion of WW II. I would have liked to found the answer to why General Lewis B. "Chesty" Puller spread the Marines so thin during the island battle of Pelilieu in the Pacific. I would like to have seen the surrenders at Appamatox, Versailles, and in both theaters of WW II (Germany and Japan).

On the exploration front, I would have liked to have sat near Meriweather Lewis and William Clark when they reported a "thunderous sound" as they were making their way out west (in search of the Northwest Passage). Today, we would have called this a "sonic boom"; however, most scientists consider this sound to be the equivalent of an avalanche falling from the mountain tops.

I would have liked to have seen the Gettysburg Address by President Lincoln and have listened to the Emancipation Proclamation that came from his voice.

On a lighter side I would have liked to have seen the face on the person who discovered Ice Cream, the light bulb, the steam engine, and the printing press.

Have a good day! There is more but I should save room for others.

Best to you!
Gerry

Answer 3

I would travel back to Old Kingdom Egypt during the pyramid age to see the construction of the monuments and what life would have been like back then. People didn't know anything of the world and believed in magic and the afterlife. Of course I wouldn't to go back as some guy that worked in the fields or anything but I would like to go back as an observer and not to change anything. It was a unique period in human history and so far removed from our present era.

Answer 4

I love to stand within ancient ruins knowing that it was once a thriving city with people, and letting my imagination run riot.

I wouldn't know where to start, There's the palace of Knossos, The Hanging Gardens of Babylon, the Ancient Olympics, where men competed naked, and were in such disgrace if they didn't win, their own mother disowned them, and Cleopatra and Mark Antony's funeral. Unlocking some of China's secrets, as a lot of it's history is unknown, being such a closed country. The building of Stonehenge.

Then of course, World Cup Final 1966!

I wouldn't change a thing, as it could alter the balance of the world, and people you know might not exist on your return. (you could even bump into an ancestor)

Answer 5

Dont think id change anything. Most major historical events have had a lasting effect on modern life, and altering one thing could start a chain reaction you dont want.
Id go back to the days of the Mayans, just because my uncle is v interested in that period so would be gagging to have a first hand tale of what happened.

Answer 6

I would like to go back to 1840 and live on the street where I worked. Selling hardware items in the local store and knowing everyone in town. Sitting in the afternoon sun listining to the band in the local park gazebo and strolling with my favorite girl in the park. Playing baseball with the neighbors and being worried about my brothers and sisters when they got sick. Our back door would always be open in the summer and my neighbor was welcome to disipline me when I got a little noisy. I would be a very good diswasher because there was no such automatic gadget around. Life was lazy and simple and there were no Jones to keep up with. No...I would not change much.

Answer 7

While everyone appears very content with the "look but don't touch" approach, I'm much too tempted to play with the past. I don't understand the appeal of keeping the status quo, as though any change would inevitably be for the worse. Of course my changes all can be accounted for my own background and prejudices - few Europeans would change the shape of the world so that the Mongols conquered Vienna, and few English would change the course of history so that Napoleon won a stunning victory at Waterloo.

I for one would not mind going back to October, 2000. I would travel to Florida and, having won the lottery of course as I studied the numbers prior to my trip, invested heavily in a public relations campaign, buying hours upon hours of airtime on a 20 second commercial entitled "This Is How You Properly Punch a Chad". Mr. Gore, you're welcome. The platform is yours, now tell us about this whole global warming thing.

Or maybe I'd travel back to sometime in the early seventh century, to the Hejaz, where I would pay for a young orphan to go to Constantinople to be properly trained in Orthodox Christianity. This young orphan, Muhammad, would most likely not have come to the same conclusions that he was the chosen prophet of God, destined to convert others to the true faith. Absent Muhammad, I doubt Arab raiders would have united behind a cause to conquer half of the known world at that time.

Or maybe I would have done something similar with the apostle Paul. Without Paul, the teachings of Jesus wouldn't have went much farther than the shores of Palestine, as it was Paul who, let's face it, made the very important decision to forget that crucial requirement that male converts to the faith be circumcised. I don't think Roman citizens were waiting on line very long before they realized, "I'm sorry, this whole Christianity thing sounds really great and all, but you just can't go around slicing off my kibbles and bits". Absent Paul, I don't think Christianity would have gone very far, and Europe would have taken a completely different cultural route more in the line of Greece and Rome and more northern pagan cultures and less influenced by a small monotheistic semetic culture from the east.

I could alert airport personnel to close flights departing from Logan Airport on the morning of September 11th, 2001. I'd probably bring back the videos of the September 11th attacks and enough evidence so that we could all partake in a good old fashioned beating of the hijackers on those planes. Why should mobs in Iraq or Somalia have all the fun, if ever a group of individuals had theirs coming, I would say this group. Of course I'd do very much the same with the Madrid bomber(s) "Excuse me sir, you forgot your backpack!" and with the 7/7 bombers of London, lock them in a room with their bags and good riddance, they deserve no better. And of course no time travel trip would be complete without a stop-over at Osama bin Laden's place, but I'll save Yahoo Answers any censorship troubles and not list the four hundred and twenty fun activities I could think of.. god willing.

The possibilities are endless. I would travel everywhere and change as much as I could, there isn't anything of our own modern era that isn't so perfect as not to be altered, though I'm by in large happy with the world we have, why not try to improve upon it. So as soon as you create that time travel machine, put me on the waiting list, ok?

Answer 8

There are so many places I would like to visit. Simply from pure interest, and some to change some tragic events.
Yet by doing that we are risking so much. Once you return back to the present, the world could be completely different, and even you could not exist anymore.

Answer 9

Id never change tha past - you just can say that it might become better than, maybe it gets worse than you could think of now. I would just watch, and I guess I would be a kind of time travel tourist, I want to see so many scenes from history from different periods of time...

Answer 10

Sometimes as I travel, I try to imagine what this country looked like before it became so modernized. I would love to travel to the Pioneer days when the only mode of transportation was wagons or horses. I would also like to go back to the Civil War Era.
As far as changing anything, I think I would leave it as it is. Our history is what made us who we are, as a nation and as individuals.