# Summon 10 people from history



## Clouds Weep Snowflakes (Feb 24, 2019)

If you could summon 10 people from any time in history other than Jesus and Mary to a table for a brainstorming/discussion/meeting, who would they be?

For me:

Charlemagne
King David, king of Israel
Ludwig van Beethoven (guess why)
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (guess why again)
Louis XIV of France
Tsar Peter the Great
St. Joan of Arc
St. Jerome, the Biblical scholar
Isabella I of Castile
King Arthur


As you can see, I listed monarchs the most; and you?


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## LezLee (Feb 21, 2014)

Good luck with King Arthur who almost certainly didn’t exist 

I can’t think of any historical figures I’d like to talk to so I’ll choose the 3 of my grandparents who died before I was born.


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## Pat Fairlea (Dec 9, 2015)

Assuming that the chosen 10 magically acquired fluency in a common language?

OK then:
Catherine the Great
Hasan ibn al-Haytham
Alfred Russel Wallace
Mary Shelley
Po Chu-I 
The Rouffignac cave artist
Nina Hagerup Grieg
Capt. James Cook
Gustav Holst
Tiye (Egypt, 18th Dynasty)

Interesting mix of characters and knowledge, though short on Sub-saharan Africa and other indigenous people.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Socrates
Diogenes
Bertrand Russell
Kierkegaard
Charlie Parker
Edgard Varese
Dostoevsky
Mark Twain
John Adams (founding father, not composer)
Emily Dickinson


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

LezLee said:


> Good luck with King Arthur who almost certainly didn't exist
> 
> I can't think of any historical figures I'd like to talk to so I'll choose the 3 of my grandparents who died before I was born.


I wouldn't say a word among my choices. I'd let them hash it out for an evening or two.


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## Steerpike (Dec 29, 2018)

Almost impossible to say, but off the top of my head -

- Richard III
- Niccolo Machiavelli
- Jon Lord
- Mahatma Ghandi
- Charles Dickens
- Ernest Shackleton
- Geronimo
- Venerable Bede
- Friedrich Nietzche
- Martin Luther King

I'm sure they'd all have something interesting to contribute.


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

Just a few: Gesualdo, Mozart, George Sand, Chopin, Beethoven, Mahler. Everyone else I could do without, including the workaholic Bach. Not interested in Wagner, who’d probably never give anyone else a chance to speak. I wouldn’t mind meeting Abraham Lincoln and Walt Whitman.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Walt Whitman would be cool. He was a real progressive.


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## Clouds Weep Snowflakes (Feb 24, 2019)

LezLee said:


> Good luck with King Arthur who almost certainly didn't exist
> 
> I can't think of any historical figures I'd like to talk to so I'll choose the 3 of my grandparents who died before I was born.


Don't you British people believe he will resurrect to save Britain one they? I actually have a model of the Excalibur!


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## jenspen (Apr 25, 2015)

starthrower said:


> Socrates
> Diogenes
> Bertrand Russell
> Kierkegaard
> ...


How are you thinking of getting a peep out of Emily? I suspect that many of the objects of my curiosity expressed themselves best in their works too and of being the sort who'd prefer to slyly observe. Maybe they'd become lost in some creative or intellectual reverie that was of more interest to them than the company - I'm thinking of Jane Austen, Shakespeare, Franz Schubert, Montaigne, Sir Thomas Browne....

I considered Socrates, Seneca, Samuel Johnson and some of the more loquacious practitioners of philosophy - natural philosophers like T.H.Huxley and Einstein included - but there'd be blood on the floor before long.

Captain Cook, though, is a great suggestion. The tales he'd have to tell! He could swop yarns and opinions with the recently disinterred Matthew Flinders R.N. - my favourite explorer - and I'd be spellbound.


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## Vronsky (Jan 5, 2015)

George Carlin
Ambrose Bierce
Benedict Anderson
Ian Curtis
Robert Schumann
Hugo Pratt
Jorge Luis Borges
Josip Juraj Strossmayer
Ivan Cankar
Arthur Rimbaud


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

Avoiding choices already made, I would invite this lot:

Gautama Buddha
Plato
Marco Polo
Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent
Voltaire
Toussaint L'Ouverture
Karl Marx
Branch Rickey
Leonard Bernstein
Enoch Powell


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Being someone who believes that knowledge is cumulative, and also interested in science, I would gather recent individuals who have written and spoken widely about science and the sciences. The following folks could speak among themselves on earth science, physics, astronomy, general biology/evolution, and on paleo and contemporary anthropology.

Isaac Asimov
Richard Dawkins
Jared Diamond
Richard Feynman
Stephen Jay Gould
Robert Hazen
Carl Sagan
Ian Tattersall
Steven Weinberg
E. O. Wilson


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## philoctetes (Jun 15, 2017)

Subject to revision:

Honore de Balzac
Emmy Noether
Jean Rhys
Peter Matthiesson
John Wesley Powell
Pocahontas (the real one)
Claude Shannon
Bill Walton
Pythagoras
Erik Satie


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## Vronsky (Jan 5, 2015)

philoctetes said:


> Subject to revision:
> 
> Honore de Balzac
> Emmy Noether
> ...


Bill Walton from Portland Trail Blazers?


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## Guest (Mar 19, 2019)

Edgar Lubbock
Albert Meysey-Thompson
Charles W. Alcock
Morton Betts
William Crake
Thomas Hooman
Walpole Vidal
Reginald Courtenay Welch
Edward Bowen
Alexander Bonsor
Charles Wollaston


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

Adam and Eve
Abraham
Moses
Jesus, the Christ
Joan the Maid (Joan of Arc)
Ludwig van Beethoven
Felix Mendelssohn
George Washington
Ronald Reagan


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## Merl (Jul 28, 2016)

If im being serious then my ancestors especially my grandad (whom i never met). However as I'm in a silly mood.......

Beethoven (of course)
Henry VIII
Keith Moon
Groucho Marx
Edgar Allan Poe
Tommy Cooper
Carlos Kleiber
Joan of Arc
Boudica
Dean Martin

We'd all meet round at our house for a few quick drinks before hitting Wetherspoons. Imagine dragging that lot round Dunfermline for a pub crawl? Certainly wouldnt be a dull night (hence my choices).


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

Fritz Kobus said:


> Adam and Eve


Great pick! I do wonder what language they would be speaking to you.


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

Root said:


> Edgar Lubbock
> Albert Meysey-Thompson
> Charles W. Alcock
> Morton Betts
> ...


Where have I been - never heard of any of the above.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Shakespeare
Jane Austen
St Margaret Clitherow
Dr Samuel Johnson
Henry Irving
Ellen Terry 
Niel Gow
Turlough O'Carolan
The Venerable Bede
Abraham Lincoln

and a whole lot more! These are just the names that popped up first.


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

Cleopatra
Queen Victoria
Queen Elizabeth (the earlier one)
Billie Jean King
Ayn Rand
Elizabeth Warren
Serena Williams
Julia Roberts
Mae West
Mrs. Pence


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Here's another list; this time of strange insiders who were outsiders, or vice versa, or who otherwise led complex, busy, or mysterious lives on the margins of history......

Wilhelm Canaris: head of German Military Intelligence; executed by Gestapo
Ernestine L. Rose: feminist, anti-slavery advocate, and atheist
Aaron Burr: VP of United States; killed Hamilton in duel; intriguer
Lorenzo Da Ponte: Mozart's librettist; man of many travels and adventures 
Thomas Paine: pamphleteer for American and French revolutions
Alexander Kerensky: amazing survivor of the October revolution
John C. Frémont: The Pathfinder, conqueror of California, failed Union general
John Wilkes: repeatedly evicted from Parliament, repeatedly re-elected 
Haakon Chevalier: mysterious colleague of J. Robert Oppenheimer
Frederick Cook: first to reach the North Pole???


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Bulldog said:


> Great pick! I do wonder what language they would be speaking to you.


Forget Adam & Eve. I want to know what language the talking serpent speaks?


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## LezLee (Feb 21, 2014)

starthrower said:


> Forget Adam & Eve. I want to know what language the talking serpent speaks?


It had asp-irations to speak a pythonesque version of Serpentine.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

The most interesting, sympathetic, and surely articulate snake I am aware of is Kaa, the close companion of Mowgli in several of the best _Jungle Books_ tales. We are not to even think of the Disney cartoon of the same name; we are to concentrate entirely on the wonderful Rudyard Kipling literary masterpiece.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

starthrower said:


> Socrates
> Diogenes
> Bertrand Russell
> Kierkegaard
> ...


I think Socrates would get a kick out of Charlie Parker. Of course, Parker had a tendency to act like a spoiled brat (according to Dave Dexter), so it depends on if he behaved himself. But from what I have heard of him, he probably wouldn't show up anyway.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

Ingélou said:


> Shakespeare
> Jane Austen
> St Margaret Clitherow
> Dr Samuel Johnson
> ...


Oh, shucks, can you imagine the repartee? Especially if you threw in Dorothy Parker for some acerbic asides. I assume Mr. Gow and Mr. O'Carolan would be there to break up the tension.


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## LezLee (Feb 21, 2014)

Bulldog said:


> Where have I been - never heard of any of the above.


I've heard of Edgar Lubbock, an English footballer at the beginning of the 20th century. I suspect he's not the same one.


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## Red Terror (Dec 10, 2018)

I'd summon Stalin to be TC's mod for a day. :lol:


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## philoctetes (Jun 15, 2017)

Today:

Willa Cather
Thelonious Monk
Ted Patrick
Lev Landau
Ivan Turgenev
Kate Wolf
Bob Marley
Gore Vidal
Giovanni Boccaccio
Ken Russell


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## Merl (Jul 28, 2016)

Bulldog said:


> Great pick! I do wonder what language they would be speaking to you.


Why English, of course. It was created on the 8th day, along with cheese, cider and millionaire cake.


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

Red Terror said:


> I'd summon Stalin to be TC's mod for a day. :lol:


Going for the soft-softly approach are you?


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Manxfeeder said:


> I think Socrates would get a kick out of Charlie Parker. Of course, Parker had a tendency to act like a spoiled brat (according to Dave Dexter), so it depends on if he behaved himself. But from what I have heard of him, he probably wouldn't show up anyway.


Since it's a hypothetical situation we can pretend Parker wasn't a heroin addict. But he was a pretty smart guy so he might show up anyway for some intellectual conversation.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

starthrower said:


> Since it's a hypothetical situation we can pretend Parker wasn't a heroin addict. But he was a pretty smart guy so he might show up anyway for some intellectual conversation.


From the interviews I've read, he seemed very intelligent and aware of musical developments around him. And I'm sure he would enjoy the company of Varese, since he died before he could take composition lessons from him.


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## Brahmsian Colors (Sep 16, 2016)

John F. Kennedy
Johannes Brahms
Gustav Mahler
Antonin Dvorak
Bruno Walter
Vincent Van Gogh
Jane Austen
Walter Chronkite
Bayard Rustin
Rita Hayworth


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

Haydn67 said:


> John F. Kennedy
> Johannes Brahms
> Gustav Mahler
> Antonin Dvorak
> ...


Rita Hayworth - that's an interesting choice. For her intellect or her dancing skills?


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## Judith (Nov 11, 2015)

King Richard III
Brahms
Schumann
Clara Schumann
Mary Queen of Scots
Charlotte Bronte
Anne Bronte
Emily Bronte
Beethoven
Tchaikovsky

A mixed bag but love history, music and Brontes


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## Josquin13 (Nov 7, 2017)

--Manetho, the supposed last Egyptian high priest of the City of Annu, or Heliopolis. If not Manetho, then as a distant second choice, either Pythagoras or Plato, who weren't permitted to study with the learned priests at Heliopolis, being Greeks. The Roman historian Herodotus tells us that the priests at Heliopolis had true knowledge of our origins as a species, which had been passed down to them, presumably by the remnants of a pre-diluvial civilization. In my view, that would make for a much more interesting, enlightening dinner conversation than Richard Dawkins... 

--The man that wrote the works of Shakespeare, who I expect charmed even the gods...
--Sir Isaac Newton
--My grandfather
--St. John of Patmos
--Josquin Desprez (or possibly Guillaume Dufay...)
--Raphael Sanzio da Urbino
--Leonardo da Vinci
--Rogier van der Weyden (or maybe Gerard David--one of the great Flemish masters...)
--Frederic, Lord Leighton
--William-Adolphe Bouguereau

Clouds Weep Snowflakes,

Beethoven? I'm not sure I can guess why you've chosen Beethoven, but will ask you, why Beethoven?

Arthur didn't exist? Then who was Ambrosius Aurelianus, or Ambrose Aurielian, or Ambrosius Aurelianus, or Emrys Wledig? & the House of Pendragon? And, what happened at Baddon Hill?


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

I’d love to meet the Elizabethan playwrights who were behind the Shakespearian plays, such as Francis Bacon and his anonymous friends. That a single man named Shakespeare wrote them, who was essentially illiterate with illiterate children, never any mention of these plays in his last will and testament, I find completely unacceptable and unbelievable... Would love to sit down at dinner with them and Elizabeth l at the head of the table. Pass the lamb and mutton!


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## Meyerbeer Smith (Mar 25, 2016)

Caligula
Domitian
Qin Shi Huang
Attila the Hun
Genghis Khan
Timur the Lame
Vlad III Tepes Dracul (if only for his effective views on solving poverty)
Ivan the Terrible
Ranavalona
Hitler

It would be an ... interesting evening.

It might need more feminine charm and beauty - Messalina, Elisabeth Bathory, Theodora, and Lucrezia Borgia

For an even more entertaining party, half the guests could be replaced by the likes of Asoka and Dietrich Bonhoeffer


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## david johnson (Jun 25, 2007)

Jesus
Adam
Gen. Lee
Abe Lincoln
MLK
Bach
Sousa
Bruckner
Grand dad
Marilyn Chambers


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## Brahmsian Colors (Sep 16, 2016)

Manxfeeder said:


> Rita Hayworth - that's an interesting choice. For her intellect or her dancing skills?


If I wanted to choose for intellect it would have been Katherine Hepburn. For physical attractiveness it was Rita Hayworth.


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## LezLee (Feb 21, 2014)

Dr. Shatterhand said:


> Caligula
> Domitian
> Qin Shi Huang
> Attila the Hun
> ...


You have a death wish then?


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