I thought about this while reading about the “Miracle of the Sun” in Fatima.
For those who may not know, in 1917 three peasant children in Portugal claimed to have been visited by a “pretty lady from heaven,” who everyone in their village figured was the Virgin Mary. The woman allegedly gave the children three secrets (which were later revealed to be about not much at all) and promised to perform a miracle at noon on October 13 in order to convince any non-believers out there.
Tens of thousands of people turned out and, from all accounts, saw something pretty damn miraculous. According to many, many witnesses, they watched as the clouds parted, the sun “danced” in the sky and spun around rapidly on its axis, emitting colorful sparks; the sun then appeared to “detach itself from the sky” and fly down to the earth, heating up the land and drying out everybody’s wet clothing (it had rained earlier in the afternoon).
Some estimates claim that around 40,000 people were on hand for the event; some people who were miles away and hadn’t even heard about any “miracles” to be performed that afternoon apparently reported seeing something strange happening in the sky.
I’m about as skeptical as you can be when it comes to stuff like this. Normally I’d say this was some kind of mass hallucination from a group of people spending hours staring at the sun and expecting a miracle. But some of the witnesses to the event included scientists, journalists, doctors and other prone-to-be-skeptical folk.
Anyway, that is one historical event I sure wish had been filmed for posterity.
Martin Luther King, Jr. once gave a speech at the college where I work. It wasn’t a major or famous speech, I guess just a run-of-the-mill speaking engagement. The student newspaper at the time covered it with a brief article.
I always thought it would be interesting to have video footage (or film footage, as would probably have been more likely) to see it happening in a place that I am familiar with … and possibly even seeing people in the audience whom I know - or rather younger versions of the people I know. Or even people I knew who are dead now.
Man, a lot of things come to mind. Depending on your definition of ‘historical event’ I might want video of my dad first and foremost - he didn’t do anything of historic proportions, but he lived since the beginning of history.
Otherwies, maybe a Revolutionary War battle, or the vote for the Declaration of Independence, or an original staging of Hamlet, or the 7th game of the 1924 World Series (Senators over New York Giants).
a second camera angle on the JFK assassination just to prove the conspiracy nuts wrong, and that their is only one gunman. (maybe one of those bullet trailing cameras they have in movies would be good haha)