if you had a time machine....

[EmmaGrundyForPM]

Inspired by something I read on another thread, I started thinking about where I'd choose to visit if I had a time machine.

Assuming you could use it to observe and not to interfere with or change the course of history, where and when would you visit?

I might opt for Jesrusalem.circ AD33 to see if I could see Jesus, not because I'm overly religious but more because it would be interesting to see what really happened. Altnatively I'd like to go back to when Stonehenge was being built to see how it was done.

So what would other people choose?

@ToeNailSoup Peep Show?

@bananahood

I’d love to go back to WW2 and see how my DGM lived, I’ve always been fascinated by the period and loved hearing her tales of blackouts, air raid, rationing etc.

I’d love to go back to 1972 to see if my birth Dad was actually the bastard my coward of a birth Mother says he is.?

This is a good idea for tv series surely. Time travelling detectives.
Solving historical mysteries.
I would go forward I think not too far 50 years maybe. Just to see my kids grandkids are ok.
I’ve just realised typing that in 50 years time my ds will be 90. Bloody hell.

I’d like to go back and find out how my great great grandfather escaped the potato famine in County Cork when he was only about twelve, and ended up in West Yorkshire. Did he go on his own? How did he manage that? What happened to the rest of his family? So many questions.

Clearly lots of you have thought about this much more than I have!

Maybe we should set some parameters for our machine. I thought not interacting but merely observing was important otherwise we'd be tempted to interfere with history (assassinating Hitler in 1933 for example) which might have unintended consequences.

So you could go back (or forward) and observe. The machine would sort out your clothes and your language skills. You'd only be allowed to stay a few days.

I quite fancy going back to the 60s and going to Woodstock.

Forward. I'd have to go forward. Not knowing how a story ends is almost physically painful for me. The only thing I really hate about my mortality is that I won't get to see how things continue to unfold.

I want to see whether humanity claims the stars, and how. Per ardua ad astra.

As long as I had good health and good teeth I’d like to go back to Elizabeth1 time in London. Would like to be able to get into palaces and slums, the river, the wharves, Hampton court, or just a little later Pepys time.
Or swerving madly ancient China or parts of Africa both of which had highly evolved/developed societies way before western Europe did. I’d like somehow to be able to ravel great distances during ancient times to see the contrasts at various moments in time.
Most definitely do not want to go into the future. Most definitely not election night. Most definitely don’t want to see further Irretrievable loss of species i grew up considering to be normal and permanent feature.

I would go back to Tudor times, the second world war and Victorian times.

I would go back to a day in 2005 when I had to make a decision and went with my head and chose the sensible decision and not the very precarious decision that my gut was screaming at me to do.

Trouble is you'd also need to be invisible - otherwise you'd stand out like a sore thumb (even with appropriate clothes), and wouldn't be able to get close enough to what you need to witness.

and don't go back to a time when plague and smallpox was rife, anywhere near a battle, and take your own supplies........

Forward. I'd go forward and see if we invent warp drive and meet alien races (friendly I hope)

I want to see the future. I want to see what humanity becomes.

I'd like to go back to visit all my ancestors on my family trees. Particularly 1930 to find out who my Grandfather actually was, my DGM was a single parent who never revealed his name to my DF.

Have any of you read Jodie Taylor's St Mary's series? It's just this question but done in a novel form and really funny.

I would want to see the Parthenon being built.

I wad about to ask if you have read the Chronicles of St. Mary's by Jodi Taylor?

They are historians who do exactly this, and yes, sometimes there are unintended consequences. It is very well researched, well written and very funny.

Out of all of the places they went to observe, I think I would fancy Thermopylae or Troy. They did go to observe Jack the Ripper once too. That was a scary one, but still witty at times too.

I'd like to be able to go and see my grandad (who I never met) be awarded his Military Medal. He was an army doctor during WW2 and was left with severe facial injuries and the loss of one hand after refusing to leave three injured men under fire. He saved all three of them in spite of his injuries, and I'd love to be able to see him rewarded for it.