If you could travel back to any time period…

[AmazingBouncingFerret]

Any era or civilisation, any social class, what would it be?

I’m torn between being aristocratic in Regency England because everything was obviously just like a Jane Austen novel or maybe the roaring twenties, even though I’m not the biggest fan of jazz I wouldn’t have minded the rising hemlines and risqué nightclubs.

I asked my husband and he genuinely started muttering something about Romans, which is hilarious considering he’s an almost 50 year old with no social media so he wouldn’t have seen or heard of the Roman Empire thing.

Good one!
What exactly happened to the Princes in the Tower?

I think when you have an op that says ‘because everything was obviously just like a Jane Austen novel’ that’s kind of a giveaway that she knows it’s not, assuming you know about irony.

I'd like to travel back to when the Great Pyramid was being built, and watch it's construction. I'm fascinated by how they could build it so well and with such precision.

How patronising are you ?

I'd go back to the 80s and 90s. Fab time, no phones/social media, spend time with my gran and family.

Do you genuinely not see how massively patronising your own post was, implying that people on this thread know nothing about history and need you to educate us about the harsh reality?!

I can genuinely see how condescending and snotty you are. That's for sure.

Anyway, to come back to the point of the thread: I would also like to visit one of the massive Yorkshire abbeys like Fountains or Rievaulx when it was at its heyday in the medieval period. But would have to do so disguised as a man, obviously.

It disguises itself as something that blends in like, oh, I dunno, a police box.

All true (and a reason why I wouldn’t actually want to go back in time) but I think my parent’s perception of growing up in the 30’s/40’s/50’s was that things I would find awful were just normal life. I certainly don’t have rose tinted spectacles but I suspect that if everyone else is in the same boat your perspective is different.

LA in the 60s watching all the bands on the strip, and also go to woodstock.

Then, as a bystander just watching it all, and nothing can see me, right back to the time when we emerged from the waters, and then throughout the millions of years that followed then walk with dinosaurs. How fascinating

Like @LunaNorth Viking or just-post Viking York or just post-Ice Age North Yorkshire. I live on the shores of Lake Pickering and I would love to visit some of the mesolithic villages that were establishing then. Starr Carr in its heyday would be something to see!

Thanks! I had not seen that. (I asked himself, he said "virtually never"!)

1872 Liverpool need to find dh’s grandfather’s name. 1950’s Saskatchewan to help Tommy Douglas bring in universal Medicare. Sorry for awkward typing fell. And broke my right arm yesterday.

Shed a tear to that, I can understand that emotion.

You started it, and now you are just derailing the thread!!

None of us can really go back in time, and I think most of us are intelligent enough to understand that past times were not always ideal, but also that along with the drawbacks there are some things which were actually better.

I imagine that many decades hence people will be looking back at things which happen now in horror. Life is hardly as rosy today as you seem to think.

@Merrymouse was correct in that when you are living through times you simply think of them as normal.

Turn of the 19th/20th century New York as a debutante.
Very Gilded Age!

If I had to stay there, I wouldn’t go back. If it’s just as a sort of invisible bystander I’d like to see the dinosaurs and also the battle of Trafalgar and London during the blitz. I’d also like to go back to the year I was born and see it through an adults eyes.

Hell yes! (Have you seen there is a Star Carr exhibition coming up at the Yorkshire Museum btw? Can’t wait!)

As long as I was hovering safely above it I would like to see the tsunami that according to some theories destroyed Doggerland.

I hadn't seen this - thank you! I will certainly be visiting that one.

I'd love to visit my home town when many of the houses and streets were newly built, so the first decade of the 20th century. There would be a lot of landmarks I would know so I'd be able to find my way around quite comfortably but it would be fascinating to see what my street looked like when it was new, and what existed before the other later 20th century buildings were added.

I'd also like to meet my ancestors, one mid 19th century family in particular, who I have a family Bible and various other heirlooms from.

Then again, imagine visiting 18th century London, that would be pretty cool!

I could play this game for hours!

More likely they will be watching the world flood as the lighting flashes illuminate the sky and they will huddle with their small band of survivors and dream of a time in the distant past when you could stay at home all day in a warm house and get paid for watching television (whatever that is)

I think the two decades 1890 to 1910 must have been an interesting time to live.