# What single historical event would you most like to have witnessed? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [January 19, 2003, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-single-historical-event-would-you-most-like-to-have-witnessed/149582 "2003-01-19T03:27:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2003, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-single-historical-event-would-you-most-like-to-have-witnessed/149582/101 "2003-02-15T00:23:29Z")
I’d only go if I **was** allowed to participate; I’d like to go back and be apprentice to Leonardo Da Vinci. ---
**Author:** ![SRB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecae2f/32.png) [@SRB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SRB)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2003, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-single-historical-event-would-you-most-like-to-have-witnessed/149582/102 "2003-02-15T01:47:31Z")
I would like to have been present at the funeral of Alexander the Great. It’s one of the genuine remaining mysteries of archaeology. Well, ok, so I could find the burial spot. Hey, its a wish, right? ---
**Author:** ![Lehcar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/b5a626/32.png) [@Lehcar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lehcar)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2003, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-single-historical-event-would-you-most-like-to-have-witnessed/149582/103 "2003-02-15T02:28:32Z")
This is a very Eurocentric bunch, isn’t it? I’d like to be under the Bodhi tree when Buddha reached Enlightenment. Then maybe I could figure out how… ---
**Author:** ![melly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b4bc9f/32.png) [@melly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/melly)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2003, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-single-historical-event-would-you-most-like-to-have-witnessed/149582/104 "2003-02-15T23:23:12Z")
I’d like to witness the childhood of Mark and Carol Thatcher (children of former PM Margaret Thatcher) so that I’d have an easier time writing this damned essay. ---
**Author:** ![Blackeyes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/f6c823/32.png) [@Blackeyes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blackeyes)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2003, 4:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-single-historical-event-would-you-most-like-to-have-witnessed/149582/105 "2003-02-16T04:15:36Z")
The meeting between Atilla the Hun and the Pope. And what really happened then. ---
**Author:** ![DrClayForrester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9e8a1a/32.png) [@DrClayForrester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrClayForrester)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2003, 6:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-single-historical-event-would-you-most-like-to-have-witnessed/149582/106 "2003-02-16T06:29:54Z")
I’d like to see what happened when Flight 19 disappeared on practice maneuvers near the Bermuda Triangle. ---
**Author:** ![OwenKL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/e47774/32.png) [@OwenKL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OwenKL)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2003, 11:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-single-historical-event-would-you-most-like-to-have-witnessed/149582/107 "2003-02-16T11:26:59Z")
I do hope you’re including language lessons in this deal, since otherwise a lot of these people wanting to see Greek plays are going to be awfully disappointed. I’m another one who’s skeptical about Jesus’s ressurection, and so would like to see that. Also Buddha’s enlightenment, Joseph Smith’s first vision, Mohammed’s first vision, and whatever was the pivotal event in Zoroaster’s life. Battles I can do without. Blood, brutality, and confusion. Ugh. The mysteries of life are more important, or at least more worth looking at, than the pagents of death. ---
**Author:** ![David\_Simmons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9de053/32.png) [@David\_Simmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_Simmons)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2003, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-single-historical-event-would-you-most-like-to-have-witnessed/149582/108 "2003-02-16T19:44:16Z")
The election defeat of G. W. Bush as President of the US. ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2003, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-single-historical-event-would-you-most-like-to-have-witnessed/149582/109 "2003-02-16T20:15:56Z")
Hmmm… In no particular order: 1. The invention of the big con game called religion, by whatever cave man thought it up first. 2. The end of the Anasazi civilization. 3. The fall of the Alamo 4. The gunfight at the O. K. Corral 5. What happened to Judge Crater. 6. and Kasper Hauser 7. In addition to Titanic, I’d also like to see the sinking of the Empress of Ireland and the Lusitania. 8. The Battle of Hastings 9. the day I lost my virginity… ---
**Author:** ![Flowerchild](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/858c86/32.png) [@Flowerchild](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flowerchild)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2003, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-single-historical-event-would-you-most-like-to-have-witnessed/149582/110 "2003-02-16T20:23:59Z")
I would have liked to watch the Salem Witch trials,not the excutions, just the trials, I would have liked to see what those “Fits” that the kids had looked like and how gullible the puritans were to them. ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2003, 6:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-single-historical-event-would-you-most-like-to-have-witnessed/149582/111 "2003-02-17T06:16:48Z")
> [@](#): > > I think it would be nifty to visit the primordisl soup and watch the first living cell…, um, what? Coalesce? > > I guess you could say evolve. Did you sneeze? 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![lite](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/b5ac83/32.png) [@lite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lite)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2003, 12:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-single-historical-event-would-you-most-like-to-have-witnessed/149582/112 "2003-02-17T12:00:30Z")
Jerrybear stole my thunder. I’d want to be in Lambeau Field for the Ice Bowl I just don’t understand why people want to see ships sinking Also, how about any parade when we won WWII ---
**Author:** ![Cartooniverse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cartooniverse/32/3084_2.png) [@Cartooniverse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cartooniverse)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2003, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-single-historical-event-would-you-most-like-to-have-witnessed/149582/113 "2003-02-17T21:40:14Z")
This all feels a lot like Robert Silverberg’s [Up The Line](http://www.earth.li/~kake/books/Authors/S/silverberg_r_01.html). Were I in a position to step into history instead of dispassionately viewing it, the list is endless… I’d be driving a cart in 1913 Germany that runs over a snotfaced boy named Adolf Hitler. I’d have made a big stink about the “O” Rings in the Shuttle Program. I’d have pushed John Lennon out of the darned way… I’d have hobbled John Willkes Booth three days before he took the stage and altered history. Ahh, history. I wouldn’t mind being across the roadway the first time I kissed Sarah on the lips. Autumn, 1977… Just so I could remember what a blazingly pure moment that first kiss truly is. History embitters the purest of memories, I think. ---
**Author:** ![B.Serum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/b.serum/32/14266_2.png) [@B.Serum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/B.Serum)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2003, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-single-historical-event-would-you-most-like-to-have-witnessed/149582/114 "2003-02-17T22:09:37Z")
If I can’t intervene: London, England, Abbey Road Studios, February 11, 1963 to witness the all-or-nothing rendition of “Twist & Shout.” If I get to intervene: New York City, U.S., the Dakota, December 8th, 1980 to tackle a deranged lunatic with a gun. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-single-historical-event-would-you-most-like-to-have-witnessed/149582.md?page=5)