Time Travel Destinations
Here are are 15 recommended time travel destinations.
Call me a purist, but I think a time machine should be used only for visiting the past. All you have to do to see any particular future event is...now what's that phrase, again?
In my view, time travel to the future is a last-ditch effort (not requiring a time machine per se) to be used only if the other stuff doesn't work out. Besides, if we adopt that modest and reasonable restriction, we're able to add more interesting past events to our time travel itinerary, such as:
Fall of Troy -- not just checking Helen out for hotness, to see if the Horse thing really happened
Wright Brothers' first flight
Hannibal crossing Alps with elephants
The Big Whack -- You'd want a spaceship in addition to a time machine in order to have the right perspective on this one; plus it might be a tad dangerous if viewed from the earth's surface.
JFK assassination -- Time travelers would keep going back and watch this from every possible angle.
Cleopatra -- Gives us a point of comparison with Helen.
D-Day
Biblical miracles -- Granted, more of a category than an event. My guess is that, as with the JFK assassination, both enthusiasts and skeptics would go back and see exactly what they expect to see.
I'm sure there are others...what am I missing?
Comments
Performances of Shakespeare's plays at the Old Globe. Plus any play in which Will appeared.
Posted by: Charlie Martin | June 3, 2009 12:40 PM
I wouldn't mind a visit to the original Woodstock Festival. I was too young and in the wrong country when it happened. Actually, I'm still in the wrong country...
Posted by: Guy David | June 3, 2009 12:59 PM
Pretty sad list, if you ask me. That's even ignoring all the ones set in the future (how would you even know when to travel to?).
Even with a time machine, how exactly are you going to find the very first controlled use of fire by early humans?
And I'm with Lazarus Long on this one. No battles.
What about visiting the library at Alexandria, or watching the first pages roll off Gutenberg's press?
Posted by: Bleyddyn | June 3, 2009 04:59 PM
Heck, why stay away from biblical times (except to keep this from becoming an argumentative comment section)? I say we go to Calvary and the the Tomb three days later and settle it. :)
Barring that, here are my off the cuff wishes:
Gettysburg Address.
Apollo 11 (from behind a hill at Tranquility).
Titanic leaving the dock at Cove, Ireland.
Signing of Magna Carta and Declaration of Independence.
Napoleon at Waterloo.
Churchill's "Never give up" speech
"I Have a Dream"
Discovery of Penicillin
Supernova of 1054
Sacking of Rome
I could go on.
Posted by: Jasony | June 4, 2009 07:33 PM
The landings on Normandy on D Day, although getting a vantage point where you wouldn't be killed would be difficult.
San Francisco in 1849 was probably interesting.
The building of a pyramid.
Posted by: Patrick | June 4, 2009 09:20 PM