If you could go back in time and witness any big event in history, which one would it be

[MyPithyCat]

For me it'd be the first commercial radio broadcast on 2nd November 1920. That's the best type of radio (even though it'd adverts every 15-20 minutes) but I'd love to see how it all began

I am lucky enough to live in a medieval hall house dating from the 14th century. I would love to go back and see how people lived in it just after it was built.

time of Jesus

As long as I was unhurt, I'd quite like to experience one night of the Blitz in London. Just to experience the Blitz spirit.

The Great Exhibition is a good shout, or be there at the moment that James Watt invented the steam engine to see the actual birth of the Industrial Revolution.

Or be a fly on the wall the day my parents conceived me. Bit pervy, I realise, but interesting nonetheless.

Or be a fly on the wall the day my parents conceived me. Bit pervy, I realise, but interesting nonetheless.

Goodness no, my mum tried to tell me a story about how I was conceived once, so I assume there is some amusing or interesting anecdote, but I cut her right off and said no no no I don't want to hear it.

I would have to say Jesus' tomb to clear up the resurrection business, but thats like me choosing healing as my superpower - it is what I feel I ought to do not what I really want! Otherwise I would love to meet John Keats, preferably to slip him a TB jab.

So many great suggestions here - love this thread!
I'd like to have witnessed many of the events mentioned above. I'd also like to have been singing in the chorus at the first ever performance of Carmina Burana.

I saw him live at the Greyhound in Croydon in 1969 or 1970!

I'd like to have seen the fire that destroyed the Crystal Palace. My grandmother was living in Forest Hill when it happened, and she gave vivid descriptions of how the sky was entirely red to the south, and how they could hear the fire spitting and crackling even though they were 2 or 3 miles away. That must have been quite something.

My DF could vaguely recall it, but not in any detail as he was only 3 or 4.

My mum is elderly and remembers the blitz very clearly. She says that there’s a lot of rose tinted reminiscences about what was a really dreadful time to live through. The bomb shelters were cold, uncomfortable and dark places with no proper facilities. Everyone could hear bombs going off around them and wondered who would survive the night. Mum was constantly scared that her parents or sister would die after she heard about a cousin who died in a bombing. She heard and saw things that no child should ever be aware of.

Fabulous thread. I've learned so much from all your posts.

I might be weird but I would love to smell what past times were like. You can sort of picture what things were like but it's harder to imagine the smell.

What did Westminster Abbey smell like at the moment of Elizabeth the first's coronation or in the room where Guy Fawkes and his gang planned the Gunpowder Plot?

I know this thread is a fantasy thread, but now you are just pushing it 😉

If you mean from a safe viewing area, the meteor that took out the dinosaurs.

Great thread by the way, so much more interesting than how many washing loads a day!

I think I'd just like to go and meet my ancestors from whom Im directly related and just find out more about them.

None of these 'big events' so to speak. What DID happen to them. Fill in the list stories from history rather than the stories we know at least through myths.

You know the adage - never meet your heroes.

I suspect he'll be disappointing.

I saw him in Salisbury in 1973.
I'll never forget it 🙂

I’d like to go back and meet Princess Diana for real - I had the chance back in 1985 and turned it down to do something else- I would have liked to have actually met her. My friend said she was literally luminous. I’ve met Andrew (x), Harry, Anne and Camilla but never met Diana and then if I could go to Stonehenge being built that would finish the day off rather nicely

Definitely the time of Jesus. Fascinating.

Tudor court life, during Henry VIII’s first marriage to Catherine of Aragon, just as Anne Boleyn comes on the scene.

An average Tuesday in Skara Brae. I just want to know what they did!

One of my things I love to do is cook recipes from very old cook books and I always think, This is how someone's kitchen smelt in 1780 (or whenever).
It makes me very happy.

I’d love to be able to see all Hans Holbein’s paintings, not just the ones that have survived. His subjects are so real they almost step off the canvas. I’m sure part of the perennial fascination with the Tudor court is because of his incredible portraits.

I’d also really like to be able to read Jane Austen’s letters too, the ones her sister Cassandra destroyed. She felt they didn’t show her in a good light, but I think they must have been sharp, clever and witty, and have delighted in puncturing pomposity.

Pompeii

Scotland 4 Denmark 2, 18 Nov 2025.

I would like to go back to when they were placing stones around Avebury to find out why.

Mallet’s Mallet is a word association game you mustn’t pause, hesitate, repeat a word or say a word I don’t like, else you'll get a bash on the head like this or like this! It’s the one with the most bruises who loses; now look at each other and go blah; look at everyone at home and go blah; your first word is... HEDGEHOG!

Wish I could’ve seen The Clash’s 1977 performance at the Rainbow Theatre. Also that I was in the audience at Billy Connolly’s Last Supper routine as it’s what put him on the map. Would love to know how the pyramids and Stonehenge were made… Would love to meet my ancestors, especially my grandparents and great grandparents when they were young. I’d like to witness a night in a speakeasy in Prohibition Era USA, and attend a dance hall during the Big Band era just to watch everyone dance.

Victorian London - Jack the Ripper era