Thursday Thirteen #22

I did a posting a little while ago on a scientific discovery that might, just might, signal the theoretical possibility of time travel.  Then Duchess Wylie of Kinson suggested in a comment that I should do a TT of events in history I’d like to visit.  So, here they are:

             Thirteen Visits To The Past I'd Like To Make

1.     It would be a brilliant idea to travel into next month just long enough to pick up a list of winning lottery numbers, then hop back to the present.  Then all my problems would be over.  Or, if only travel to the past is possible, then I’d like to meet my grandfathers, without revealing my identity of course, to try to persuade them to invest every penny they had in brand new, unknown startup companies like Xerox or Polaroid, and then I could return to the present day and find that there is a huge family fortune to which I am the main heir.

2.     Victorian London has always fascinated me, so I’d love to go back and just walk about, maybe taking a Hansom cab for longer distances. 1851 would be a good year to choose, when the Great Exhibition was on, and the Crystal Palace had just been opened.

3.     The best way of finding out exactly who built Stonehenge 5000 years ago, and how they did it, would be to go and have a look. I’ll have my camcorder with me.  We tend to lump all of ancient history together in one period, but of course Stonehenge was built millennia before the time of ancient Egypt, where I would also want to visit. It seems to me that in ancient Egypt the sun always shone and I expect it almost always did.  I don’t know enough about the various dynasties to choose which period to visit. Any of them would be fascinating.

4.     I have read accounts of how the North American plains once were covered from horizon to horizon by huge herds of buffalo, before they were slaughtered in the 19th century and almost wiped out by human greed.  I’d like to see that sight for myself.

5.     I’d like to see Napoleon step ashore at St. Helena into exile for life in 1815, after being defeated at Waterloo.  I’d really enjoy seeing that cruel, destructive, self-centred,  jumped-up little runt finally realising that he had lost everything.

6.     The years between the two world wars were they heyday of the luxury liners that crossed the north Atlantic, and also were the brief period when the passenger airships flew.  I’d like to cross one way on a luxury liner (first class, naturally) and the other way on the Hindenburg (but not, of course, on her final journey).

7.     I have a deep and abiding interest in the First World War so I’d like to take my chances and spend a few days in the trenches in, say, 1917.  It would not be enjoyable so much as interesting and possibly traumatic, but if it were possible it would be an experience I would not pass up.

8.     When the Monarchy was restored in 1660 after the eleven disastrous years of Cromwell’s republic,  Charles II, the Merry Monarch, led a procession through cheering crowds who were delighted to celebrate the end of Puritan rule.  I’d like to be part of it.

9.     I would like to witness Cleopatra’s entry to Rome, to see if it was as spectacular as it has been depicted in films, or maybe it was even more so.  And while I’m there, I’d drop in on a Roman orgy. Everyone unashamedly bonking everyone else in a festival of pure pleasure and a celebration of lust. And the occasion fully catered.  I wouldn’t join in of course, I’d just watch. (Yeah, right!)

10.   By all accounts, Queen Elizabeth I’s speech to her troops at Tilbury at the approach of the Armada in 1588 was a tour de force, which inspired them to victory.  I’d like to be there with a hidden tape recorder. And while we’re on the subject of monarchs, I do wonder if Richard III was really the villain history has remembered him as.  Was Shakespeare’s portrait of a hunchbacked murderer accurate?   Best go see for myself

11.   Magnificent, cruel, awe inspiring, brutal.  But something one never sees today. From a distance, I would be fascinated to see a cavalry charge.  The Scots Greys at Waterloo perhaps, or maybe the Battle of Omdurman.

12.   I’ll stand quietly in the background as the German generals come to General Montgomery’s HQ on Lunenburg heath to surrender and bring World War Two in Europe to an end in May, 1945.  As each one saluted and introduced himself, Montgomery replied: “Never heard of you!”  I’d try not to applaud.

13.   Let me try my hand at riding a horse, or even a mule, as a member of Chaucer’s group of pilgrims on their way to Canterbury. Yes I know it was fiction, but I want to go anyway!

.

Comments

[Lara]

I would love to see who built Stonehenge. I was there over 25 years ago before they stopped allowing people to touch the stones -- it was a shame how people were defacing those magnificent pieces of architecture! It was an incredible experience -- one I'll never forget!
Great TT!

[PJ]

I'd definitely join you in watching Cleopatra, I'm sure it would have been an amazing sight.

[Tink]

Interesting list, really made me think: where would I want to go..? Perhaps I'll do a TT about it one day!
Thanks for visiting my TT about Robbie's lyrics. Don't take my word for it, check him out! ;-)

[Joely]

Oooh, I'd love to see these myself. What a fun time!

[Joanne]

Wow! If someone had asked me where I'd like to travel into the past I'd probably have a big duh...response before I could think of anything. But reading all these-I'd totally want to see them all. Another excellent list-how do you think of these? Have a fantastic weekend!

[The Gal Herself]

Love your #3. What would you do with the information about Stonehenge when you got back to our millennium? I'd like to stay right here in the Chicagoland area, but go back to the 1860s. Because we're called The Land of Lincoln, that time period has always seemed especially romantic to me. I wouldn't want to stay long, though. No air conditioning, no central heat ...

[Chelle Y.]

I would love to travel back to the time Francis Scott Key wrote the Star-Spangled Banner. :)

Or, the lottery ticket one would be great too! LOL!

http://www.chelleyoung.com/index.php/archive/thursday-thirteen-74-thirteen-things-about-my-mom/

[WorksForMom]

This is a really interesting list and concept (and wow - what research)!

[Nicole Austin]

Great list and what a cool idea. I'd love to travel back in time and experience history firsthand.

Happy TT!

[Thomma Lyn]

What a fabulous idea for a T13! And I thoroughly enjoyed your list -- LOLOL @ your characterization of Napoleon as a "jumped up little runt" (I agree). And I, too, would love to hear the speech given by Queen Elizabeth I!

Happy T13, and thanks for visiting mine. :)

[Susan Helene Gottfried]

That Wylie's one smart cookie, huh??

Brilliant idea about Stonehenge. But to be honest, if I could pick only one, I'd go for the bison. All that great meat!!!

At any rate, take great pictures on the trip (optimistic, aren't I?). I'll bring some wine or something when you're ready to share the films.

[The Nononsense]

I would love to see those. May I join you for # 3 please?

[Christine]

A fascinating list as always. I'm with you on travelling on a luxury liner (#6). Kudos to both you and Wylie.

Mine's up too - after a two-week absence from the TT world.

[Judy Callarman]

Very interesting and thought-provoking! I'd like to be there for Stonehenge, also, and the Canterbury pilgrimage. I'd like to have been there when Guy Fawkes was caught on a barrel of gunpowder.

[Wylie Kinson]

Wonderful post, N! Interesting, thought-provoking and imaginative. I'd like to be in that stable when Jesus was born. Just to see if it really happened that way.
And offer the poor girl and epidural.

[Jennfactor]

What a wonderful list! I'd join you for #'s 2,4,and 8. Aside from a little backdated Microsoft stock, I'd like to have a time lapse view of a cathedral going up!

(And Boggle IS awesome, just not on emailed spreadsheets...)

[pussreboots]

Another great TT. I'd like to see the pyramids being built first hand. :)

[Robin from Israel]

The late Middle Ages and Renaissance Europe. The Middle Ages for the pageantry and the Renaissance for the wonder of the arts. Oh, and I'd like to be very rich while I'm there. Preferably royalty. No sense in going back as a serf...

[Xakara]

It would be very interesting to see the past as it truly was, but there isn't any place I'd personally want to visit where I wouldn't stand out as some strange and exotic skinned creature from afar. That rather goes against the scientific stance of observing without directly interferring.

I could do Egypt, just before, during, and after the Nubian rule. Pehaps Spain after the Moors swept through. Everyplace else would have to be observed through a telescopic lens. *grin*

Great list, glad I stopped by before heading to bed.

Happy TT

~X

[Ash]

Seriously, that's the best TT I've ever read. Shows how stupid I must seem, I only did 13 LOLcat pictures.

Great writing Nicko! (But I'll bet it's because you are British.(Or is it English?
) the British always seem smarter to me. must be that accent!)

[busy]

Victorian London is some place i'd love to go! Being here in NY you don't get much history. Some places but no where near as much as England.

[Uisce]

Very interesting list. I think I'd like to go back to the 18th century and see what things were like during the revolution.

[Journeywoman]

I'd join you in Elizabethan England. I'd also like to see the buffalo. As for charges, do you just want a cavalry charge or would Pickett's Charge do?

My aunt, a history teacher, also is fascinated with WWI. She gets angry that now it is pretty much glossed over as a "act 1" of WW2.

Good list.

[Sheryl]

WOW...what a creative TT idea! I'm with you on 1-4,and 6! I'm going to have to do a back-in-time post...great fun!

[kaykayzowie]

I'd love to go back in the past and see all those things too! I recently started finding history more interesting than I did when I was so much younger. Great list!