this post was submitted on 22 Aug 2023
44 points (95.8% liked)

History

4335 readers
1 users here now

Welcome to History!

This community is dedicated to sharing and discussing fascinating historical facts from all periods and regions.

Rules:

FOLLOW THE CODE OF CONDUCT

NOTE WELL: Personal attacks and insults will not be tolerated. Stick to talking about the historical topic at hand in your comments. Insults and personal attacks will get you an immediate ban for a period of time determined by the moderator who bans you.

  1. Post about history. Ask a question about the past, share a link to an article about something historical, or talk about something related to history that interests you. Please encourage discussion whenever possible.

  2. No memes. No ads. No promos. No spam.

  3. No porn.

  4. We like facts and reliable sources here. Don't spread misinformation or try to change the historical record.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

For the sake of the argument, you get to arrive up to 24 hours before the event starts and leave up to 24 hours after it ends.

all 46 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 year ago

Tough to choose, but I think it would be interesting to see what the heck was going on with the dancing plague of 1518.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Would I still be able to remember the visit? Witnessing the hiding of some long lost treasure would still be directly beneficial.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

Sure. That's a good one.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago (2 children)

The start of the universe. The big bang, or even what came before that. The big dinner and a movie.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago

24 hours before the beginning of time, there was oldGregg. And oldGregg said, "This is lit", and it was.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Given that time itself began at the Big Bang, would you get stuck there forever? I’m not familiar with the laws of “what if” scenario physics

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

I bet it would be like one of those shitty tiktoks/shorts where the instant the video starts the person is mid word. Because that dopamine cycle doesn't have time for you to properly cut a video.

Personally I think the position would be harder to nail down. You can't exactly fit a person into a singularity without some compression. So you'd have to start watching it after at least a few nanoseconds so you'd have room for your physical body.

[–] earlgrey0 17 points 1 year ago

I had heard that Mark Twain was a fantastic orator, so I would love to be in the audience for one of his shows.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago

Normandy Beach, D-Day. You read about the scale, but to see it in person...

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago

Either watch the building of the Tomb of Tutankhamun. Watch and record what happens. I can't interact or interfere (which mean I would have zero effect on the time line), but I would have video evidence of how they did it. Since it took years to build (supposedly) we don't really know how long it took, I would watch the beginning week or two of it.

Be a hell of a shock if it really was "aliens". lol

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Chaka when the walls fell.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I wanna witness the Roman who graffitied about being gay in the bathroom stall - just to see the kind of man they were.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

An astute observation

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'd like to see the asteroid that finished off the dinos and Mount Vesuvius erupting.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

For everyone who doesn't want to google it, Mount Vesuvius is the volcano that destroyed Pompeii.

It's also what I'm interested to see in person if I could go back.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I would love to see the moment humans first learned complex speech patterns. Yes it was probably a long process. But to see the first complete sentence uttered would be cool as hell. Even better if I could somehow understand it.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago

The first human being to say something like, "I am grog" and you walk up and hit them with modern day internet slang they're just going to say fuck this and go back to the trees

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

Can I watch the first moon landing from the moon? Or maybe one of the big astrod impacts....

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The big bang, especially if I can record it (don't think that counts as interacting, it's just a more trustworthy version of the recording it into my memory)

Especially since this means we'd get the conditions before it

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Schrodinger would agree with you.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I think it would be a toss up between attending the sermon on the mount and spending a day in America before Columbus landed.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

How is your Aramaic? Assuming it did happen.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

I want to see a day during the Cambrian explosion

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Can I move around and replay and can I watch at speed multiples like 100x? There are so many land formations I'm interested in seeing formed. From major things like chimney rock to a creek at home that's 200ft below the hill tops alongside it. If it's only for one event I choose the end of the last great ice age. If I only get 24 hours real-time I choose observing Hitler the 24 hours before he killed himself.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

I'd probably choose something for entertainment. Maybe see what a Shakespeare show at the Globe was really like (extremely chaotic from what I've read)

Or see Hendrix play live at Woodstock!

That makes me sound a bit shallow maybe - there's a lot of questions I have about what early Christianity was like before the Catholic church came on the scene, what sort of a ruler Richard III was, similar sorts of dry questions... But given the choice I'd probably want some rowdy entertainment

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

I've grown increasingly convinced Nefertiti served as inspiration for later stories about Helen of Troy, so I'd very much be interested in seeing the arrival of "beautiful woman who arrived" at Pharoh's court, and the way the only woman ever depicted in the smiting pose in Egyptian history carried herself into a dangerous new environment.

What charm and wit did she possess such that Akhenaten felt the need to both acknowledge in the boundary stelae at Armana that she got everything she desired but to adamantly deny that the idea for the city was hers?

How much of reworking the entirety of Egypt's religion into a solar cult was the result of her influence, and just how did she see her role in that paradigm?

I have many questions about her that I'd probably have answered with 24 hours of being a fly on the wall observing her and her husband's interactions.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

the death and or funeral of ghengis khan

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Record that lost speech of Lincoln.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

The fall of the Colossus of Rhodes or the Assassination of Julius Caesar.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

@MariaRomanov the buddh’s enlightenment

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

D-Day, somewhere were the scotsmen landed. Imagine hundreds of planes in the air, thousands of ships, the soldiers take the beaches and behind them a bagpiper is playing.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Would like to witness the Ides of March, from the beginning of the day till the end.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

I'd love to see Hannibal crossing the Alp's with elephants! and if I had only 24hrs i guess it would be at the point they emerge from the mountains and romans see the elephant sand shit themselves. (I'm not sure that part ever happened)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Jesus Christ and the sermon on the mount, specifically the sharing of fishes and loaves of bread.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

I wanna see superman land in Kansas

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I will kick the first lungfish back into the primordial sea.

[–] vulnerability 1 points 1 year ago

I will help you