Nah, a couple productions of MacBeth! Then we could settle the question of who was the third murderer. Though watching the theatre catch fire during HV could be interesting.
Me? Louis XIV Versailles or late 1800s Vienna would be interesting.
Post revolutionary America. I’d love to travel West across the undeveloped continent.
I think mid to late 17th would be better - 18th you have the Napeonic Wars, the Industrial Revolution, all that pesky proles getting the vote. Get down, you filthy poor person, get down!!
Except that the theater actually caught fire during the premiere of Henry VIII. It would still be interesting, but I’d rather go see HV because it’s a much better play! 
Actually, it might also still be a historic occasion, because HV may well have been the first play performed at the Globe – it was written around the same time the Globe was built (1599), and the frequent acknowledgement of the play’s theatricality, particularly the nod to the “wooden O” at the beginning, may well have been a way of calling attention to the shiny new theater. (In any case, Henry V was the play chosen for the official opening of the restored Globe.)
I’d love to find out some great Shakespearean mystery, like what the deal was with Love’s Labour’s Won or which companies Shakespeare was involved with (prior to the Lord Chamberlain’s, later King’s, Men) or what really happened to those manuscripts…
Grrrr, I meant 18th and 19th respectively, not 17th and 18th
Want to know something? Type in a Google search. Having a tough time making friends in a new city? Still got your online buddies. Want to get from Point A to Point B? Airfares are about as cheap as they’ve ever been; ditto gas prices.
There’s a whole lot to be said for now.
If I had to go back in time - permanently - I think my minimum technological requirement is a refrigerator. I don’t want to go back to when they were nonexistent, or were a rarity in American households. Keeping perishables from perishing quite so fast is one of the great advances of the modern era, AFAIAC.
So if I have to go back to any time, I’d also pick the 1960s. Great soundtrack.
BTW, I like the idea of being able to pick your economic circumstances when you choose your era. (“I’d like to be British landed gentry in the early-mid 1800s.”) I’d like to be a dot-com billionaire in 1999, especially knowing what we all do now. 
I’d like to be a dot-com billionaire in 1998, and buy up the Redskins before Dan Snyder got there!
I think it would be SOOOOO much fun to go back in time to the late 60’s and early 70’s. As long as I had the nerve to be a hippie. haha I wouldn’t want to live in that time as a goodie-goodie…
I also think it would be pretty cool to be a visitor in biblical times during some of the cool stuff that happened.
:):)
I kinda like America, pre 9/11/01, but oh well . .
I agree with the late 60s- lots of fucking to be had, but still no vcrs or videogames!
I would have also enjoyed either being Mongolian Warrior under Genghis Khan- or one of the hordes of barbarians that sacked Rome. It would be kind of fun to kill, destroy cities and take women as sex slaves- and it still be socially accepted. Being a Viking would kick major ass as well.
Personally, I’m thinking Renaissance Italy, as some wealthy putz who never had to work. I could spend my days in inventing all sorts of interesting concepts from math and physics, and when I got bored from proving g8rguy’s 385th theorem or inventing calculus or inventing those laws that Newton stole from me, I could go see all sorts of interesting art! Good fun.
I would go and live in Byzantium, 1000 A.D. I would like to be in St. Petersburg, during the reign of Catherine the Great.
Been there done that. 
Check down “Now” for me, thanks.
Its the little things, like conditioner and chamomile candles. Its also the fact that I’m a mouthy feminist and so many of the outdated attitudes would get on my nerves. (even now, I run into “girls can’t be engineers” and I want to hurt people. I’d go crazy.)
I like now. Fashion and living styles are free enough to do whatever you want, pretty much whenever you want. Health care, cleanliness, lack of bugs, the whole shebang. I am a product of this time and can’t really see myself as being happy anytime else.
There are still clueless people like that around? Don’t get mad at 'em - you should be sympathetic to the problems of the mentally handicapped.
I mean, I wonder what they’d say if they ran into my older sister. She’s been a civil engineer since about 1976. It’s a bit late to tell her that women can’t be engineers.
The future-with jet packs and silver kinky boots and flying rockets and y’know stuff!
Seriously, the past has too much disease, infant mortality, dying in childbirth and dead dogs and babies in the streets and all that funky stuff-oh also, fecal matter everywhere, everything stinking, and women being treated like chattels. Did I mention the dead dogs and babies in the street? And rotting bodies of sheep thieves in gibbets!
Ugh. I like being alive now! Or in the future! With protein pills! (oh they don’t sound so nice) Anyway that counts as historical? well sorta.
Seriously again, I likebeing alive after the age of 25! So nyaah nyaah to stinky old history!
From a purely æsthetic perspective, I’d go for Edwardian England, or perhaps an Englishman out in one of their colonies at the time.
If given an opportunity to live in the past I would probably turn it down, as I would miss being surprised by new developments in technology and new history being made, as well as modern medical techniques, but if I had to…my first choice would probably be the 1960s. Modern enough that I wouldn’t miss too many conveniences, I could be a non-conformist and have plenty of people who would be cool with that, and the free love atmosphere would certainly be an improvement over what I spent my teenage and twenty-something years in. If I started far enough back I could probably take Jimi Hendrix’s place, too.
If we are talking something less modern, late 19th century New York always appealed to me. You’d have a fairly enlightened upper class with social mores different enough from ours to be interesting, and the ability to live a fairly safe and luxurious lifestyle if you had the funds, while you also had a vibrant seamy underbelly to go slumming in. The fact that most recreational drugs that are illegal now were legal, inexpensive, and conveniently located at the corner drugstore would be pretty sweet as well.
I will cheat, because I always cheat. I want to live in the future, right after the invention of immortality and cheap, low-paradox* time travel. Then I get everything.
–John
*This is how I envision humanity ultimately solving the paradox problems of time travel: we don’t, we just try to minimize it and put up with a certain level, just like air pollution from cars.
Presuming I can take with me the secrets and machinery of the present, then I always think about going back to when Rome was taking it’s first steps toward empire (Pre-Caesar) and use my magic devices and modern military tactics to dominate all of the world. It would be so freaking cool. Of course, I’d have to bring along some doctors to make sure I don’t die before I unite all of Europe and the Middle East.
Mid-1500’s, Italy. Wouldn’t hurt to be one of the Caetana family. And it helps already knowing the steps to their intricate dances - between my current body, my pale skin, and my dance know-how, I’d be damned desirable!
Plus, to see all that art … mmmm. Yes, I’ll wear 62-lb dresses any day of the week for these kinds of benefits