# What past event would you most like to see on film?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-past-event-would-you-most-like-to-see-on-film/964442
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [May 15, 2022, 5:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-past-event-would-you-most-like-to-see-on-film/964442 "2022-05-15T05:11:47Z")
**Posts on this page:** 13
**Page:** 4
### Author:  [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)
#### Post date: [May 18, 2022, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-past-event-would-you-most-like-to-see-on-film/964442/61 "2022-05-18T00:42:04Z")
> [@Tibby](#):
>
> Too bad that game wasn’t televised and no found footage. We lived in a suburb of Philadelphia at the time. My big brother was the star 6’7” center on his HS team. I recall all the hoopla made over _Wilt the Stilt’s 100 pointer._
I was also in a Philly suburb (Drexel Hill) on that date. My mother and I had probably just finished typing my PhD thesis.
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### Author:  [@eburacum45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eburacum45)
#### Post date: [May 18, 2022, 9:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-past-event-would-you-most-like-to-see-on-film/964442/62 "2022-05-18T09:54:44Z")
> [@mbh](#):
>
> A papal conclave. (Probably boring as hell, but I’d still like to have a recording of one.)
Hmm; the Cadaver Synod might have been an entertaining sight.
> **[Cadaver Synod](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadaver_Synod)**
>
> The Cadaver Synod (also called the Cadaver Trial; Latin: Synodus Horrenda) is the name commonly given to the ecclesiastical trial of Pope Formosus, who had been dead for about seven months, in the Basilica of St. John Lateran in Rome during January 897. The trial was conducted by Pope Stephen VI, the successor to Formosus' successor, Pope Boniface VI. Stephen had Formosus' corpse exhumed and brought to the papal court for judgment. He accused Formosus of perjury, of having acceded to the papac
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### Author:  [@Tibby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tibby)
#### Post date: [May 18, 2022, 11:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-past-event-would-you-most-like-to-see-on-film/964442/63 "2022-05-18T11:54:36Z")
I’d like to see Nikola Tesla’s AC power inspired eureka moment during his walk in Budapest. But, I’d really like to see highlights of his entire life on film. Scenes would include:
- His birth on a thunder and lightening stormy night in Croatia.
- Getting off the boat with 4 cents in his pocket and settling in NYC.
- Meeting and being hired by Edison.
- Being poo pooed by Edison when discussing his AC power ideas.
- Development of the AC induction motor at Tesla Electric Co.
- Meeting George Westinghouse for the first time.
- The meeting when Westinghouse screwed him out of royalty rights worth $-billions.
- Tinkering in the Wardenclyffe lab and seeing his tower completed.
- The lights turning on at the Chicago World’s Fair.
- Completion of the Tesla coil.
- Writing about communicating with Martians and sending letters to long-dead friend Mark Twain at a non-existent address.
- Dying alone at the Hotel New Yorker.
Incredible genius. Bittersweet film.
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### Author:  [@chadreal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chadreal)
#### Post date: [May 20, 2022, 7:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-past-event-would-you-most-like-to-see-on-film/964442/64 "2022-05-20T07:54:26Z")
A film about Bob Lazar’s story
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### Author:  [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)
#### Post date: [May 20, 2022, 8:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-past-event-would-you-most-like-to-see-on-film/964442/65 "2022-05-20T08:19:41Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#):
>
> Does using the magical camera to confirm (or deny) that a particular event actually took place go against the OP’s stipulation that “there must be compelling evidence that the event actually took place”?
That he rose from the dead may not have compelling evidence, but his _conception_ most certainly happened and film of that event would certainly answer a few questions.
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### Author:  [@eburacum45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eburacum45)
#### Post date: [May 20, 2022, 9:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-past-event-would-you-most-like-to-see-on-film/964442/66 "2022-05-20T09:05:22Z")
> [@chadreal](#):
>
> A film about Bob Lazar’s story
I’ve got at least a dozen UFO-related incidents I’d like to see on this camera, mostly because I’d like to confirm my scepticism in each case. But the OP did specify that events involving extraterrestrial life were excluded. Perhaps that means that Lazar, Roswell and the rest could be permitted, since these events almost certainly have nothing to do with aliens.
In the novel The Light of Other Days by Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter, a time viewer of this kind was used to reassess all mankinds’ religious beliefs. I note that this possibility is not excluded in the OP, and I think such a capability would change the world profoundly. But that’s my scepticism talking again.
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### Author:  [@TreacherousCretin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TreacherousCretin)
#### Post date: [May 20, 2022, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-past-event-would-you-most-like-to-see-on-film/964442/67 "2022-05-20T18:42:20Z")
1. Me too for: _The Rite Of Spring_ premier riot, camera on the audience.
2. J.S. Bach performing on the organ. If he’s taking requests from the congregation (or the magic camera from the future), the “Great” Fugue in G minor.
3. The Missoula Flood, aerial video.
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### Author:  [@Yelnick\_McWawa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yelnick_McWawa)
#### Post date: [May 21, 2022, 10:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-past-event-would-you-most-like-to-see-on-film/964442/68 "2022-05-21T10:56:28Z")
The creation of Meteor Crater in Arizona; The Johnstown flood; The molasses flood of 1919 (it wasn’t slow that January);
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### Author:  [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)
#### Post date: [May 21, 2022, 11:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-past-event-would-you-most-like-to-see-on-film/964442/69 "2022-05-21T11:21:38Z")
Probably the Tulsa massacre. It’s such an incredibly important moment in American history, and yet that massacre and a series of similar massacres that took place across America that summer in prosperous black communities, are largely unknown today.
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### Author:  [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)
#### Post date: [May 21, 2022, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-past-event-would-you-most-like-to-see-on-film/964442/70 "2022-05-21T21:24:45Z")
> [@Tibby](#):
>
> I’d like to see…
Watch the Director’s Cut of _The Current War._ I think you’ll enjoy it. Great film.
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### Author:  [@Honolulu\_Lulu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Honolulu_Lulu)
#### Post date: [May 23, 2022, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-past-event-would-you-most-like-to-see-on-film/964442/71 "2022-05-23T14:41:42Z")
> [@madmonk28](#):
>
> Tulsa massacre.
That makes me want to see the Mountain Meadows Massacre (1857). I don’t like the thought of watching innocent people die. I’d like to know what the LDS people were thinking when they slaughtered 120-150 non-LDS after the non-LDS had surrendered their weapons.
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### Author:  [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)
#### Post date: [May 23, 2022, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-past-event-would-you-most-like-to-see-on-film/964442/72 "2022-05-23T14:44:32Z")
The Tulsa massacre became better known after it was featured in the first episode of the 2019 HBO limited series _[Watchmen](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watchmen_(TV_series))_.
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### Author:  [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)
#### Post date: [May 23, 2022, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-past-event-would-you-most-like-to-see-on-film/964442/73 "2022-05-23T19:40:22Z")
Also featured in Lovecraft Country. The fact that one of our political parties wants to make it illegal to teach school kids about it, means it needs to be taught widely.
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