Suppose there was a recording: what would you most like to see or hear?

[fishbicycle]

On the same theme as Spectre of Pithecanthropus, I’d like to see and hear the Woolton Fete performance where Paul McCartney first heard The Quarry Men and was introduced to John Lennon, and put on an impromptu show for him that ultimately led to his inclusion in the group. I’d like to see the night they first played in Liverpool after having returned from Germany. In their absence from home, they’d learned showmanship. When they got up on stage and started playing, the crowd was mesmerized - they’d never seen or heard anything like it before. I’d love to see the scene that happened in their hotel room in New York when Bob Dylan came by to turn The Beatles on to pot for the first time.

[Clothahump]

Right off the top of my head, in no particular order of importance:

The gunfight at the OK Corral. Actually, the two days prior to it, the fight itself, and then the vendetta ride.
The last known 24 hours of Judge Crater and Jimmy Hoffa, and then the next couple of days.
What really happened with the Princes in the Tower and Kasper Hauser.
The sinking of the Titanic. the Lusitania and the Empress of Ireland.
The Battle of Hastings.
A day in the life of da Vinci, or Michaelangelo, or Van Gogh.

[Beware_of_Doug]

@Governor Quinn

Virtually all radio broadcasts pre-1932 are lost, I’d like some of those to show up as well.

You and me both. I’ll make my wish for any films of TV shows predating 1948.

[John_Carter_of_Mars]

I’d like to watch an audio/video recording of Pickett’s charge at Gettysburg. 15,000 men marching over a mile, in cadence, into the face of cannon and rifle fire is something that never happened before and has never happened since.

[Zoe]

I would choose a less historical moment, but one filled with significance for some of us:

Jack Kennedy, Bobby, Teddy, John Seigenthaler, other Kennedys, other friends and aids playing football at the Hyannisport Compound – with Joseph and Rose looking on.

[robz]

Trafalgar from the POV of Nelsons flagship. Waterloo from both Napolean & Wellington’s POV.

[Morbo]

@Clothahump

What really happened with <snip> Kasper Hauser.

I thought they recently pretty conclusively matched his DNA to the House of Baden?

Ah, here we go:

In 2002, the Institute for Forensic Medicine of the University of Münster analyzed hair and body cells from locks of hair and items of clothing that were also alleged to belong to Kaspar Hauser, and came to a more conclusive result. The analysts took from the items used in the test six different DNA samples, all of which were determined to belong to the same person, and which were 95% identical to the DNA of Astrid von Medinger, a descendant of Stéphanie de Beauharnais, who would have been Kaspar Hauser’s mother if indeed he had been the hereditary prince of Baden. The DNA evidence would seem to argue that Kaspar Hauser was indeed related to the House of Baden.

[mobo85]

Since nobody knows what Christopher Columbus actually looked like, a videotape of him would be interesting. I’d also like to know what various famous people sounded like. Sure, we know what George Washington and all those other famous guys look like since people painted their portraits. But what did they sound like?

[Zeldar]

@mobo85

Since nobody knows what Christopher Columbus actually looked like, a videotape of him would be interesting. I’d also like to know what various famous people sounded like. Sure, we know what George Washington and all those other famous guys look like since people painted their portraits. But what did they sound like?

Maybe it’s the name connection, but I always pictured Washington sounding like George Burns or George Jessel. How about George Carlin?

[LouisB]

I’d like video and audio of a wagon train leaving from Missouri and arriving in Oregon: complete coverage, that is.

Same thing of a cattle drive from Southwest Texas to Dodge City.

I’d like video and audio of my family’s migration(s) from Tennessee & West Virginia to Texas; complete coverage from the decision to leave to the establishment of homesteads.

[TwoTrouts]

@John Carter of Mars

I’d like to watch an audio/video recording of Pickett’s charge at Gettysburg. 15,000 men marching over a mile, in cadence, into the face of cannon and rifle fire is something that never happened before and has never happened since.

This was my first thought as well! The first part of the “charge” was in complete silence except for the tramp of the Confederate feet with the rustle and clink of uniforms and armaments. The Union men up on the ridge going, “WTF??? They’re walking into range of all of our guns??”
Plus, a recording of the “Rebel Yell”. Another sound lost to history.

[brownie55]

I think the Tunguska Event would be worth watching.

[Tess_Trueheart]

@VCO3

I would absolutely love an in-the-audience video bootleg of the premiere of Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring. And the penis that ensued.

This was mine! A lot of pieces that are (over)used for movie and TV soundtracks started out making crowds go crazy, so lots of music premieres would be interesting.

I would also like to have seen the live performance of High Tor with Julie Andrews and Bing Crosby… they taped it for playback, which may have made it the first “made-for-TV-movie,” but those talents, live in the 1950s would’ve been amazing to watch.

[Slypork]

I have quite a few:
• Video of the final moments of the crew on the Mary Celeste
• Cockpit film from Amelia Earhart
• Video of the final days of the lost colony of Roanoke
• Video of the last days of Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna, the daughter of Czar Nicholas
• Video of the final days of Pope John Paul I (to see if he really was murdered as some claim)
• Video from Fatima in 1917 and then images of the Third Secret (to see if what the Vatican disclosed was accurate)
• Flight cameras from Flight 19
• Video from Hitler’s Berlin bunker to prove that he really did commit suicide.
• Video of the Lindbergh house on March 1, 1932.
• Video from the basement of JonBonet Ramsey’s house on 12/26/1996.