OK you’ve invented a time machine and can go back to any point in the past, to safeguard against tampering with the future/paradoxes et al you will be invisible when you travel back and will not be able to interact with the events that you witness. What point in time would you choose to see?
I’m not sure what point in time I’d like to see the absolute most but I would like to go back and have a gander at the Crystal Palace during the Great Exhibition of 1851.
Recent history (post 1400 or so) bores me, but I’d love to see what really happened about 2000 years ago and try to find a certain semi-divine historical figure said to be involved in some happenings in the northern parts of Ireland.
If I couldn’t find Cú Chulainn or Cathbad, I’d look for Finn MacCool and his boys. Or go back a little farther to watch the scuffle between the Fir Bolg and the Tuatha Dé Danann.
I’d absolutely love to watch the building of Newgrange or Knowth. The Beaker People fascinate me, so it’d be interesting to see the great passage tombs built and then their later decline around the time of the Beaker People (if I have my history right. I’d probably do some serious research before starting this grand trip).
On reflection, this list might be in semi-reverse order. Neolithic Ireland, Beaker, Tuatha, Tain, Finn.
Yeah, that looks better.
Back to 1959 so I can walk up to Alan Chapman and kick him in the balls.
I’d go back and stop you from adding the anti-tampering features, but then because of the anti-tampering features I’d not be able to do that.
If I had unlimited access to the machine, I’d have a list that’s 1.6 km long. In a single shot… dang. I guess there’s nothing of commercial value I could get from the past. Could we go to the future, too?
Oh, wait, go back more than 6000 years and see if the Earth does indeed exist.
No future going allowed, you take a trip back take a look around for an indefinite period then head back to the moment you left. I suppose you could make a lot of dough by bringing a camcorder with you and recording the crucifixion and other moments like that and selling the vids to tv stations. 
I know Finn McCool. He’s not as tall as me.
There are many things to do. Can we only pick one?
I guess I’d go check out that Jesus guy. I’d go see how the pyramids were built.
I’d go watch some US history take place:
Constitutional Convention
Revolutionary War battles
1812 battles
Civil War
JFK shooting
Etc.
I’d go see my home town in its infancy.
I might go watch my parents when they were young, just to see what kind of people they were back then.
If it doesn’t exist, you could be screwed.
That’d explain a lot. Bit of a Napoleon complex?
Non, je suis tres grand.
Can’t go FORWARD, huh?
Dang.
You sure this thing has a highly reliable “take me back to my own time” button on it?
OK, set it for 2,500,000 years ago. Hmm, first better let me check my terrain maps. I might have to relocate to a different part of the land mass. Hmm, that raises all kinds of interesting questions about the “here-ness” of “here”. We doing corresponding longitude & latitude, or will my feet be on the same general outcropping they started out on (and what if it hasn’t outcropped yet? Well that shouldn’t really be a factor, I’m not doing 2.5 billion years ago or anything). How about astronomical? I’m not going to materialize at some interstellar coordinate that did not happen to be occupied by the planet earth at that particular time? I’m making this too difficult, aren’t I?
::pushes button::
If I could only watch… I would go back to when my parents were kids. Maybe it would help me to understand them better.
If I could interact with the people around me, then I would go back to high school and give myself a good ass kicking for even caring what those people thought of me.
Since we can’t interact with the time, are we even ‘there?’ I mean, can we be affected by events such as getting hit by a stray musket ball at Pickett’s Charge, or can we drown from trying to see the Battle of Midway?
If we’re ghost like, then I’d pick Little Round Top on July 2, 1863, from a point 3 feet behind Joshua Chamberlain. To actually see the 20th Maine make that bayonet charge would be something that I would never forget.
If you could be killed by past events, then perhaps being in the gallery on Dec 8, 1941 to see the ‘Day of Infamy’ speech.
OK maybe I should make things a bit clearer.
You have a television that you can tune in to watch any moment of time up to this point at any angle or multiple angles if you like. What time/place would you tune to?
Dallas, November 22, 1963. School Book Depository and the grassy knoll.
Afghanistan, 2001. Tora Bora region. Find OBL and then follow him.
Roswell, NM. July 7, 1947.
I recall a science fiction story about the government doing whatever it could to surpress such an invention. The reasoning is pretty rational: A half a second ago is the past. We can look -anywhere- from -any- angle? Ultimate spying device.
However, if we take this in the spirit it is intended, I’d like to see:
JFK assassination
What actually -did- happen to the crew of the Mary Celeste
And… My first kiss. Cos I’m sappy that way.
250,000,001 years ago, to watch me some trilobites frolicking