# If you could travel back in time...



## Il Seraglio

Which part of history would you like to visit the most?

If pushed, I would visit what is now Latin America before the Spanish arrived. Apart from the fact that relatively little is known about the Incas, it's fascinating for being a complex civilization that came about in pretty much complete isolation from the Eastern hemisphere.

Because there is a limited number of spaces in these polls, I have omitted any hunter-gatherer or agricultural societies (that would include the early Celts, pre-Roman Gaul or pre-colonial antipodes for instance).

Apologies if it looks ethnocentric, but tried to cover as many places/times with the limited space.


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## emiellucifuge

I dont see a poll but I would like to visit pre-colonial africa. Great plains full of herds, beatiful rainforests, abundant great-apes. Really Africa is the most magical place Ive ever been to and I can only image what it looked like untouched. The fascinating human cultures are also a factor.


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## Il Seraglio

Yeah... it took a couple of minutes, but ready now. 

Yeah, goodness knows how many species/cultures/languages have been lost alone. Human behaviour can be very self-destructive.


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## Aksel

Is this supposed to be a poll? I can't see it.
EDIT: But I can now.

From a musical perspective, I would travel back to the heyday of the castrati in the 1750s-ish to watch people like Farinelli, Seresino and Carestini perform live. Also to hear what castrati actually sounded like back then.
And I would like to see the premiere of Tristan and also the first Ring at Bayreuth.

Also, the 19th century for purely aesthetic reasons.


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## Weston

All of it! Sure, I'd like to go back and meet Beethoven, see the Library of Alexandria, etc., but I chose Other. I'd rather go back to the Cretaceous and see a tyrannosaur.


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## Il Seraglio

I'd have to say Ancient Greece would be a very close second for me. Just to see the acropolis of Athens in all its glory and find out just what was going on in those mystery cults... or if it were a later period, see the Serapeum, Library and Lighthouse of Alexandria.


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## Huilunsoittaja

Wow, you have a lot of options there...

I'm conflicted with the choice of St.Petersburg, Russia, 1883, or 1909. That is, when my favorite composers were my age, so I could be their friends. My desires always tie back to music. 

LOL and I also wouldn't come back.


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## emiellucifuge




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## Chris

I would like to go back and visit the ancient Greek mathematicians, show them calculus, then return to 2011 and see what difference it had made to history.


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## tdc

I was thinking about saying Atlantis before it sunk...but I went with Ancient Egypt. I would like to go back and witness the creation of the great pyramids on the Giza plateau. I believe this to have occured around 10,500 BC. (I subscribe to the ideas of scholars Graham Hancock, David Wilcock, Jan Wicherink and Edgar Cayce etc.).

Of course for moderners like us any of these times and places could potentially be quite dangerous, so I am assuming we would all have universal translaters like on Star Trek, and maybe the ability to turn invisible and or jump back to the present at any time etc. But of course these things I am sure would be easy if we could travel to such places in the first place.


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## Air

We all have our personal El Dorado, but when it comes down to it, the best possible time to live in is without question... today. When one thinks of the variety of cultures we have access to today, the goods and comfort we're privileged with, as well as the large percentage of people who are capable of living freely and thinking freely... nothing can compare, no matter how wonderful it seems to us in our overly-nostalgic minds.

Well, I'll admit I do have my own fantasies of this sort (...and a lot of them!):

- Judea/Asia Minor/Greece at the time of Jesus Christ and the Early Church
- The united Kingdom of Israel under the rule of David and Solomon
- Versailles at the height of the _Ancien Régime_
- Han/Tang/Song/Ming China at its height
- Aztec/Incan/Mayan civilization at its height
- Enlightenment/1789/First Republic/Third Republic Paris
- Vienna at the height of Hapsburg rule
- Victorian/Elizabethan England
- Revolutionary/Gilded Age/early-mid 20th century America
- 1850 California
- Roman Empire of the 1st and 2nd centuries
- Egypt at the time of Rameses II
- Persian/Babylonian Empire at its height
- Medici Florence
- Spain/Portugal during the Age of Exploration
- Greece of Socrates/Plato/Aristotle
- Jurassic Period 
- Garden of Eden


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## Chi_townPhilly

Chris said:


> I would like to go back and visit the ancient Greek mathematicians, show them calculus, then return to 2011 and see what difference it had made to history.


Surely we can envision scenarios where that could have had a NEGATIVE impact on history, can't we?

How's this for a less risky plan-

Visit ancient Greece.
Attend Aristotle's Peripatetic Lectures.
Study at the Lyceum.
Secure copies of the E_*x*_oteric Works.
[N.B.: last known issuances of these works were roasted in the fire at the Library at Alexandria.]
Return to 2011 with those tomes in hand, and see what a difference they could make to our *future*.


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## mamascarlatti

Aksel said:


> From a musical perspective, I would travel back to the heyday of the castrati in the 1750s-ish to watch people like Farinelli, Seresino and Carestini perform live. Also to hear what castrati actually sounded like back then.
> And I would like to see the premiere of Tristan and also the first Ring at Bayreuth.


I could have written this post (and I think I have, elsewhere, in the past.)


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## World Violist

How about go back to Ancient Greece and give them a printing press? Then all our problems would be solved.

I don't think I'd be allowed to survive in any Western pre-modern era (or even some modern eras) mostly because they started burning people at the stake and other things like that, and I tend to be such an unusual person that I'm sure they'd burn me the moment they saw me.

In fact, I would love to be in the Age of Enlightenment were it not for the fact that the French Revolution happened right after and I'd certainly have to be decapitated.


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## Sid James

I'd really like to have seen sandstone Sydney. Just looking at old photos of my city, it looked totally different before the developers and high rise moved in from the early 1960's on. Same thing with Melbourne, although more of the old buildings have been preserved there.

Apart from that, there were many interesting times/places in history I can think of that would be interesting to experience, eg.

Swinging 1960's London.
Paris 1900 - it was all happening then/there - Picasso, Utrillo, Modigliani, Proust, Stravinsky, Debussy, etc.
New York 1950's - Varese, Feldman, abstract expressionists.
London or Berlin before the bombings/destruction of WW2.
Bucharest before Caeucescu demolished almost everything for his monster palace.
The fall of the Berlin wall, 1989.
Vienna or Budapest.

& I agree that ancient civilisations must have been astonishing to see in the flesh, though I agree with Air's implications that life is much easier now, at least for those of us in the Western world. Remember, many people across the globe don't enjoy half as much of the basic necessities - like access to clean water - that we have in the West. Water might actually become the scarcest resource 100 or so years from now...


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## HarpsichordConcerto

Aksel said:


> From a musical perspective, I would travel back to the heyday of the castrati in the 1750s-ish to watch people like Farinelli, Seresino and Carestini perform live. Also to hear what castrati actually sounded like back then.


Agree entirely. Although I should point out the heyday of the castrati was well before 1750s. Farinelli and Senesino for example, were dominating the stages from the 1720s onwards, if I'm not mistaken. So yes, a ticket please to attend the premiere of a Handel opera and oratorio. Then I might take a trip to Germany to listen to J. S. Bach improvise on the organ/keyboard while I'm there. If not too much to ask, then fast forward a few more decades to see Mozart improvise and perform his ground breaking piano concerti.

It's all a dream ...


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## Almaviva

From a historical perspective, Ancient Greece, hands down - I'd love to chat with the philosophers.
The Roman Empire would be a close second. Then I'd jump to several centuries later during the Renaissance, because I'd love to meet Leonardo da Vinci.

From a musical perspective, I'd like to hear the castrati singing live, then I'd travel in time some more to meet Mozart, the bel canto composers, and Verdi. I'd love to attend the world premiere of my most beloved operas.

Often I have a different kind of fantasy involving time travel: who would I want to bring from the past to the present, and have as a host in my home?

It would be spectacular if I could befriend one of these sacred monsters and show him one of his own operas on blu-ray, high-def TV, surround sound, and to make it even more impactful, an updated production.

Can you guys imagine Verdi's surprise with the Netrebko-Villazón La Traviata from Salzburg 2005, in gorgeous sound and image on TV?


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## tdc

HarpsichordConcerto said:


> Agree entirely. Although I should point out the heyday of the castrati was well before 1750s. Farinelli and Senesino for example, were dominating the stages from the 1720s onwards, if I'm not mistaken. So yes, a ticket please to attend the premiere of a Handel opera and oratorio. Then I might take a trip to Germany to listen to J. S. Bach improvise on the organ/keyboard while I'm there. If not too much to ask, then fast forward a few more decades to see Mozart improvise and perform his ground breaking piano concerti.
> 
> It's all a dream ...


Nice one. The fugue competition between Weiss and J.S. Bach, and/or the alleged keyboard competition between Handel and D. Scarlatti (where Handel was ranked superior on the organ, and Scarlatti the better on the harpsichord) would also have been something to see.


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## StlukesguildOhio

My own ideal cultures to visit would include:

Japan during the Heian Period
Japan during the Edo Period
China during the Tang and Song Dynasties
Rome at the time of Augustus
Ancient Persia at the time of Darius
Persia during the "classical era" 15th/16thc.
Ravenna during the time of Justinian
Florence at the birth of the Renaissance (Giotto, Dante)
16th/17th Century Venice (Titian, Veronese, Tintoretto, the Aldine Press, Monteverdi, etc...)
Elizabethan/Shakespearean London (Shakespeare, Spenser, Marlowe, Donne, etc...)
Vienna c. 1910 (Klimt, Schiele, Hugo von Hoffmansthal, Richard Strauss, Mahler, etc...)
Paris c. 1880 (Monet, Manet, Degas, Renoir, Flaubert, Baudelaire, Verlaine, etc...
Paris c. 1930 (Picasso, Matisse, Pierre Bonnard, Surrealism...)
New York c. 1948 (The birth of the New York School: Pollack, DeKooning, Rothko, Bop: Miles Davis, Thelonius Monk, John Coletrane)
Chicago c. 1955 (The birth of the Chicago "electrified" Blues: Muddy Waters, Elmore James, John Lee Hooker, Willie Dixon, Howlin' Wolf, etc...


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## Aksel

HarpsichordConcerto said:


> Agree entirely. Although I should point out the heyday of the castrati was well before 1750s. Farinelli and Senesino for example, were dominating the stages from the 1720s onwards, if I'm not mistaken. So yes, a ticket please to attend the premiere of a Handel opera and oratorio. Then I might take a trip to Germany to listen to J. S. Bach improvise on the organ/keyboard while I'm there. If not too much to ask, then fast forward a few more decades to see Mozart improvise and perform his ground breaking piano concerti.
> 
> It's all a dream ...


Well, I kind of eyeballed it, thus 1750s-ish. But it should probably have been a bit earlier. 1730-ish would have been nice.


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## elgar's ghost

Cities: Definitely agree with Andre about London mid-1960s and Paris c. 1900 (also during the reign of Nap III).

Coast to coast: USA pre-civil war and Spain pre-Inqusition. 

Sport: I'd like to have watched the badass Baltimore Orioles in the mid-1890s, an Australia v England cricket series during the 1930s, the River Plate football team of the 1940s/50s and the Welsh rugby team of the 60's/70s (even when they were thrashing England with monotonous regularity).


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## Lipatti

Either Ancient Mesopotamia, or Middle East during the Middle Ages (Early Islamic Civilization). I've been fascinated by Arabic culture lately, as you can see.

The period I would LEAST want to experience would be Europe during High Middle Ages, and also any big European city from The Age of Enlightenment until today - with a few notable exceptions (Paris during Impressionism, Saint Petersburg during the first half of the 19th century).


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## xpda

I have traveled through time more than half a century to arrive to today and answer this question.


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## EddieRUKiddingVarese

_Early Modern Europe _


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## Capeditiea

I would travel back to my first life.  around 1978BCE. :3 just to watch...In Sumer. (ie... as most of you call it... Sumeria.... WE HAD THE SPHINX! not egypt!)


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## EddieRUKiddingVarese

Riht jut beore TC crshed


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## Granate

I seriously wish I could go back to when I entered University, and live those 18 with the experience of 22. So many things would have changed for the better...


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## Capeditiea

Granate said:


> I seriously wish I could go back to when I entered University, and live those 18 with the experience of 22. So many things would have changed for the better...


...i could get all philosophical... and end up speaking to you the importance of the butterfly effect in timetravel... but that would be a book and a half. :O 
so instead...
i shall state, i have a similar thought, for going back... where if i could go back with the knowledge i have today and tell my parents to grant me that trombone... other wise i would end up in a life of sadness... or go back when i was working for this company that i had handed to me on a silver platter. i mean the amount i would have made by now would allow me to buy a concert hall... but i ended up doing drugs and getting fired for skipping a couple of days...

*philosophical madness incoming anyways... 
but if i kept that job i wouldn't have enough time to make music or anything like that... i would still be working on the lyrical fabrications (which are seen in my Book One... but i also would have been living on my own, probably with a house... i could have been married or something like that... in the end, everything done in the past by you, every mistake, every venture, every experience has led you to this specific time.

okay i shall resume with the list of things i would have loved to head back and tell my self to do things properly... 
1. joining a satanic cult and then getting publically humiliated by the group after they scammed be 66.60USD. 
2. jumping off the back of a truck while it was still moving... it really hurt... 
3. Staying home more often that running away... as a teen. (this probably could have been a better option for me... 
4. (as part of #3) not running away just to get molested... and staying there for a couple weeks.
5. Watching certain anime earlier than i should have...

but yes. these all have done something to effect me upon how it would have changed my current life...

for instance. The Molester dude, ended up inspiring my piano playing. if i never lost the job, i wouldn't have as much freedom in studying or working on music. if i didn't join that satanic cult, i would have probably made the mistake later on... and been far more tragically effected. Thusly, refering to book one again... i wouldn't have any motivation to progress in music. 
i still wish i could have seen anime a lot sooner than i did.


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## EddieRUKiddingVarese

Just before the Big Bang


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## Capeditiea

EddieRUKiddingVarese said:


> Just before the Big Bang


i can tell you from experience it is quite boring. *nods


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