- John Brown, Charles Deslondes, Thomas Jefferson, Robert E. Lee, George Pickett, and Jefferson Davis.
- An assortment of knives with some food around them (which food matters not), catered by an Antifa-friendly eatery. It should go without saying that John and Charles would get first dibs, to the exclusion of their fellows if desired.
- Mostly I would want to ask John Brown and Charles Deslondes if there’s anything else they need or would like, or if they just wanted some alone time with their fellow dinner guests, with dessert to follow at their leisure.
- Oh, I think John and Charles would have some ideas.
Leonardo da Vinci, Benjamin Franklin, Kelly Johnson, Bob Hoover, Norma Miller
Basically anybody who lived more of a life in 1 year than most people do in a lifetime.
Dinner would be catered French food or Chinese takeout
No questions, just let them talk.
after dinner game would be quarters into Brandy glasses. Loser tells a personal story of their choice.
He may be out partying somewhere exciting. He’s probably bored with the stuff that he knows you guys will get up to.
Julia Child, Socrates, Jesus of Nazareth, Charles II of Spain, and Norton I, Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico.
Julia is responsible for the menu. Socrates and Emperor Norton will provide witty banter, Jesus will say grace, and Charles II can bring a bucket of ice or something.
Bad host! BAD! You don’t make guests cook at a party in their honor.
Oh I know him well. He’ll be there. If he could. 
Nah, I’m going the other way. Historical figures & frozen dinners nuked in a microwave; may not be the tastiest but the speed will impress the 'ell out of 'em.
I dunno, if I displease my guest Queen Elizabeth I with a poor tasting dinner, she may point at me and yell, “off with his head!”
How does time travel work in your hypothetical? If I invite Hitler and poison him, does his death have rippling effects in my universe? Also, are we in a universe where the butterfly effect is dominant or do major effects happen regardless of the details of history? Or is this a situation where my plans to poison Hitler are guaranteed to be foiled because he didn’t die at a time travel dinner?
If I ask for someone who is considered historical, but may be an amalgamation of people or have an otherwise uncertain identity (say, Jesus or Homer), what do I get? Can I ask not for a name, but, say, “the author of X” or “the person that did X”?
I’m assuming we have a magic translator; otherwise the guest list is limited by time period and languages spoken.
Guests (at the risk of being murdered for excluding my wife):
- Hypatia of Alexandria
- Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle-upon-Tyne
- Benjamin Franklin
- Richard Feynman
- Victoria Coren Mitchell
Dinner: Pizza, green salad, and beer (all of good quality, of course). And why not?
Conversation: Various questions on the subject of science, mathematics, the arts, writing and women. Four of the guests were notable for their interests and experiments in science and/or mathematics at their respective time periods, and just listening to them comparing notes about the progression of these throughout the ages would be fascinating. There would be three very different perspectives on women as writers among the women alone (all of whom were published in their times) and Franklin and Feynman of course were notably published as well. Some also have involvement in other arts (although Feynman could leave his bongos at home) and I’m sure musical tastes would be an interesting subject. And VCM is also an accomplished professional poker player, which means that after dinner entertainment would be teaching each other card games of various sorts (no cards in ancient Egypt AFAIK but the others all would have readily played some card game).
There might be a slight hitch in that Margaret Cavendish was a staunch royalist and might take umbrage at dining with revolutionary Franklin, but Ben was a pretty charming guy and I’m sure he could have assuaged her doubts.
Music is in my head, and wouldn’t want politics at dinner.
Carol King
Jackson Brown
Jim Croce
Tom Petty
Sheryl Crow
Carlos Santana
I think they are probably nice people.
Dinner would be beef tenderloin cut up for shish kabob/veggies with my home made teriyaki sauce served over jasmine rice. It’s to die for.
Consider this a magical hypothetical, or one that splits into an alternate universe in the Many Worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics…and there is an attractive interpreter at your disposal who speaks many languages.
Ohh, I’m jealous of you snagging Richard Feynman. I may have to lure him over to my party for an after dinner digestif and a game of Twister. Not sure how we’d explain both of our Ben Franklins though.
Heh. I would have expected he would be in charge of the wine…
…and bread.
I’d never had this particular fantasy hypothetical, but since I was in college I’ve had the odd fantasy that there’s a knock at the door one day and it’s Ben Franklin standing there. He’s mightily confused about how he got here to this very strange place (1980’s Los Angeles) and is looking for someone, anyone to help him.
So I invite him in and he becomes my roommate as I try over the next few months to catch him up to the current era in everything. Hell, just teaching him how to not hurt himself in our kitchen is a risky chore. Despite him being a brilliant and deeply curious fellow who is (among other things) a bleeding edge scientist and political know-everybody-and-everything of his day.
A fun thought experiement I’ve revisited many time over the years in different aspects. He’d be overwhelmingly curious about everything. Both technological, historical, political, and in all the other sciences too.
Where to begin? How much background to give? And this was based on the steam gauges, moving parts, and macroscopic transistor technology of the 1980s. Plus the fairly sane politics of the Ford & Carter years. It’d be even harder today a mere 40-some years later with the utterly inscrutable and infinitely layered tech of modern networked IT, economic globalization, and the RW/Russian trollosphere.
Such fun we’d have!
I thought the Bible was silent on the quality of the bread? Not so with the wine.
Yeah, but he really put his all into the bread, body and soul.
Ben Franklin was a true renaissance man, a polymath with a razor-sharp wit who did not suffer fools. He would be the ideal guest at any dinner party. Well, maybe not a stick-up-the-ass high society party…but all others.
Just don’t order the fish. You’ll never be rid of the leftovers.
Toché