High speed footage from Hiroshima or Nagasaki. With modern super-fast cameras at strategic points it would be our best chance to document just how bad and fast an atomic war could be.
If you want to go way back, the landing of Columbus and other early explorers but centering more on the Native reactions and perspectives.
It would have to be some serious recording equipment set up at some place I can’t even imagine, but it would be cool to see the Moon being formed out of some impact by some heavenly body with the Earth in the way-back-when period.
I’d also like to see those Nazca Lines being drawn (or whatever).
And if they have video of that first Homo Sapiens being born, along with its Mama and Daddy nearby, that would be too peachy.
Watching the natives mooning Columbus would just be icing on the cake.
Luther nailing the 95 thesis to the church door.
… along those lines, his “Here I stand, I can do no other” line at the Diet of Worms
The premiere of Beethoven’s 9th.
… along those lines, the premiere of Don Giovanni
The assassination of Archduke Ferdinand
Printing the first edition of the Bible on Gutenberg’s press
The Beatles first recording session with George Martin
The first oil well (1859)
The flight at Kitty Hawk
The first steam railroad (1830)
There’s a good chance this never happened. It was reported by one of Luther’s followers several years after the supposed fact. At the time, Luther felt he was just correcting some internal problems within the church. So he sent his writings to a bishop.
It was only later, when the church hierarchy failed to make the corrections Luther felt it should, that Luther “went over their head” and appealed to the people to defy the church. And this was around the time when it was reported that Luther had originally posted his theses for public viewing.
Some that were in the OP and from others, but here’s my list:
[ul]
[li]The crucifixion of Jesus (I’d stick around three days too)[/li][li]Lincoln’s assasination and the funeral train that went across the country[/li][li]Mt Etna and Pompeii[/li][li]The sinking of the Titanic[/li][li]Just about any above-ground nuclear explosion (Hiroshima or any test)[/li][li]Little Big Horn[/li][li]9/11 with a good (safe) view of the WTC - or is that too soon?[/li][li]D-Day invasion[/li][li]The painting of the Sistine Chapel, or perhaps the Last Supper (the painting)[/li][li]The discovery of Grace Hopper’s first computer “bug” - she sounded like an interesting person[/li][/ul]
Since there doesn’t appear to be a limit on how long each viewing gets to be:
The whole life of that Jesus guy, starting from conception.
And of Sancho VII of Navarre.
This one is short: the Battle of Roncesvalles.
Life of Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar.
Another short one: siege of Tarifa.
… Can I put the whole Siglo de Oro wherever the Royal Household(s) happen to be? Lope, Cervantes, Quevedo, Góngora, Velázquez, wheeeeeeeeeee! Would adding 50 years in front be too much?
And then add the Siglo de las Luces in Paris (the 18th), but of course I’m sure it’s called something else in French. Anybody who actually knows French history in French: siècle lumière?
The Russian Revolution.
I still had two left:
The raise of the Shogunate.
Life of Alexander the Great, with the bits which would be boring from his side spent looking at things from the point of view of the people his campaigns touched. It wouldn’t be just for example the nobility of Persia, but also the common folk and those neighboring nations which weren’t part of the swath of conquest but who were affected by it (our main trade partner just got conquered - our main enemy just got turned into chop suey).
The flooding of the Mediterranean.
The Passion of Christ.
The Chicxulub impact.
Mohammed receiving instruction.
D-Day.
The Trinity Test.
The signing of Magna Carta.
The fall of Troy.
Henry VIII and the field of the cloth of gold.
The first performance of Handel’s Messiah.
Interactions between Homo Sapiens and Neanderthal humans and other species of humans (the Denisovans, Red Deer Cave folks, and more – perhaps homo floresiensis as well).
The first uses of spoken language and its progression.
The first written language.
The first settlement of the Americas, Australia, and Polynesia (by the original inhabitants, I mean).
The progenitors to all the major language groups (proto-Indo-European, proto-Uralic, etc.) in ‘action’ before all the splitting.
The origin of the Basque people and language (probably before the settlement of Europe by Indo-European speakers).
The domestication of dogs and other animals.
The first organized religion(s).
Dinosaur appearance and behavior, and other prehistoric animals (ground sloths, mammoths, whale evolution, etc.).
The first person to call himself/herself ‘King’ or ‘Queen’ or an equivalent.
The first contact between Viking explorers and native Americans.
