If you could travel back in time........

[Big_Ed]

If you could travel back in time and stay for two weeks, to what time period would you go?
Here are a few rules:
-You can go back to any time period.
-You can go to any place on the Earth.
-You can not affect history, you are just basically an anonymous bystander and observer. So no killing Hitler, or stopping assaisinations, or anything like that. Yeah, I know every person has an effect on history, but for the sake of this thread, that can't happen.
-You can not buy or acquire things and stash them away to pick up in today's world. In other words, you can't bet on the past World Series or anything like that.

What time period or periods would interest you as a "vacation"? And why?

The ones I would chose would be the mid 1950's in the USA, Lots of optimism, neat cars, beginnings of rock and roll.

I'd also like to visit the late 1890's-early 1900's in America. Major League Baseball was just taking hold, the nation growing, REALLY neat cars, no TV, radio, or other modern things, but still have electric lights, telephones and newspapers.

Where/when would you go, and why?

 

[powernoodle]

I would love to time travel. I would surveil Jesus and his disciples. I believe him to be God incarnate. And if I am wrong, he is still the most influential man ever to live.

 

[american lockpicker]

I would travel back to the USA 1943 to see what it was like when Americans had jobs, the dollar and pound was worth something, the Soviet Union was our ally.

 

[fieldops]

I would love to time travel. I would surveil Jesus and his disciples. I believe him to be God incarnate. And if I am wrong, he is still the most influential man ever to live.

I'm with Powernoodle on this one. To see the Lord in the flesh is worth more than all else the world could offer.

 

[Flying Turtle]

So many possible answers. Mine seem to center on inventors. Maybe to watch Tesla, or assist Oppenheimer in the Manhattan Project, or hang out with Ben Franklin (he was supposed to be pretty wild and Franklin is my middle name).

Great thread, Ed.

Geoff

 

[Lee1959]

I would go back to sometime prior to 1959, the year of my birth, and meet my grandparents. All of my grandparents died either before I was born or before I was 3 so I never really knew or even remember seeing them. I would kind of like that.

 

[lctorana]

I'd go back to 1967. Mostly for the music for the next six years.

And the cars.

And the shopping.

If I see the Weeping Angels, I will blink. Or just call me Sam Tyler.

 

[jtr1962]

If something like time travel really existed, it would be hard to choose only one destination. Therefore, I'd go back to the era of the dinosaurs but make lots of stops along the way. In all honesty, however, it's the future which interests me a lot more than the past. The past is well, past. If you couldn't change history by returning to it, then it's stagnant. You know exactly what is going to happen. The future is unknown, and thus a lot more interesting. BTW, I hope the future is a bright one rather than some apocalyptic nightmare.

 

[LowBat]

That's a tough one. There are so many places in time I'd love to explore.

I'm not really a train buff, but I'd like to ride the steam powered narrow gauge South Pacific Coast Railroad through the Santa Cruz mountains. I'd board in Los Gatos, say circa 1905 before the earthquake, and see the ghost towns and tunnels through the mountains before arriving at the coast.

Please tell me I can take a video camera with me. I promise not to let anyone see it.

 

[LuxLuthor]

I'd like to go back and watch my mom and dad fall in love.

 

[brucec]

I'd want to see dinosaurs, but I'd probably get eaten before the 2-weeks were up.

Meeting Jesus would be interesting, but I don't know about an Asian guy walking around the Middle East with a bunch of Romans at the time...

Perhaps I could go back and find Jimmy Hoffa or document the JFK assassination, then come back and write a book about it.

Or maybe I'd just take it easy and go watch Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock.

 

[lctorana]

I'd like to go back and watch my mom and dad fall in love.

I saw that film. I presume you drive a Delorean?

 

[flashfan]

What a great thread. Some very interesting answers.

My first thought, before even opening this thread, is almost exactly the same as Lee1959. I was 12 when my last remaining grandparent passed on, and my memories are limited. I would love to get to know all of my grandparents, and to also see how my parents grew up.

 

[AlexGT]

If nothing bad can happen to you, I would like to go 1 week before the big bang that created the universe and see what was there then see what happened 1 week after the big bang.

Should be cool watching the whole space time grid forming at speeds faster than light.

Option 2 would be 1 week before the impact of the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs to 1 week after impact to see what a real apocalipse looks like.

Option 3 go to the future and see what I am going to miss, say 100,000 years to 100,000,000 years from now

AlexGT

 

[jusval]

If I can't affect history, I might as well stay here......
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But if I could............ I would spend two weeks impersonating Sophia Loren's first real lover! Sort of fill in for him, so to speak........ :thumbsup:

 

[Sub_Umbra]

I would want to observe the happenings at the European theatre's OSS HQ in London in the final two weeks before Germany's surrender brought an end to WWII in Europe.

In the final three months of WWII in Europe all concerned parties knew that the game was almost over for Germany. All partys also were looking ahead to new, post war alliances that were sure to come. In the final three month run-up to the inevitable VE Day Everyone was jockeying for position in what would become the new strategic reality in Europe. Everyone knew that the Russians would cease to be allies shortly and this led to more diverse and wacky spy missions being carried out on the same turf by many different countries -- all at the same time.

As an example, operation Paperclip sought to find and recruit (or whatever) as many German rocket scientists for the US as possible. Pragmatically, any German rocket scientist that went to the States wouldn't be helping the Russians in what many knew would become the Cold War. At the same time teams were looking for Germany's atom bomb scientists -- for most of the same reasons. Teams were looking for All V1 and V2 missiles and parts for the same reasons. Small teams were rushing just hours ahead of conventional Allied forces as each city occupied by the Germans fell -- their mission was to secure each Gestapo HQ just before each city fell in an attempt to harvest their wartime files.

Those are but a few of thousands of similar missions being carried out in the same time frame by the Brits, the US, the French, the Russians and no one really knows how many more -- all trying to put themselves into a better position in post war Europe and the new geopolitics that would soon change the rest of the world, too.

While I've only mentioned just a few things in this time frame some simple digging around will yield a veritable plethora of diverse missions being carried out by entities from all over the world in the same place.

Most of it is still classified. It will remain so for all time. That's where and when I'd go. I've been obsessed with it for some time... It was a brief, unique period in history.

 

[nitesky]

This is a good subject, thanks Big_Ed. I like the notion of seeing Christ. I have scene this subject in other venues and discussions, but that one never came up. Also, solve a mystery. You can't do anything at the time but as brucec noted you can write a book. Other ideas:

• See some ancestors.
• Travel with Lewis and Clark.
• Watch the pyramids being built.
• Watch the discussions over the Declaration of Independence.

 

[lctorana]

• Sit in a pub with Boswell and Johnson
• Attend the 1851 Exhibition in the Crystal Palace
• Run a bath for Archimedes
• Drop an apple on Isaac Newton's head
• Go kite flying with Benjamin Franklin
• see a dodo, a tasmanian tiger etc.
• browse the great library of Alexandria
• visit the Hanging Gardens of Babylon
• find what the heck that Terracotta Army was all about
• Ride the original Spirit of Progress
• Meet my grandparents
• Stay in an 1880s seaside resort
• Buy an 8-track player, a BetaMax recorder

(hmmm... most of the above need money. Hope the Doctor is coined up.)

Religious:

• Go sailing with Jonah, and get a closer look at that Big Fish
• get an early seat on The Mount for that Sermon
• be by the River Jordan on that occasion.
• be on the Emmaus Road (cf Luke 24:27&32)
• see what Adam & Eve looked like
• watch the Sun stand still for an hour
• hear Balaam's *** speak
• hear John Knox preach

 

[Burgess]

Buy a ticket on Titanic's 1912 maiden voyage,

(leaving Southampton)

and then disembark after crossing the Channel,

in Cherbourg, France.




This is indeed a very interesting thread !


_

 

[tygger]

I'd go back to the moment where Diogenes basically told Alexander the Great to get out of the way cause he was blocking his sunlight. (if that really happened) Then hang out to chat it up with some other philosophers and maybe catch a play. Of course hangin out with homo erectus would be pretty cool too.