If you could go back in time and personally witness one historical event, which one would you choose? I’d probably choose something from the ancient world where there are still unanswered questions about what actually happened. It would be fascinating to see the event firsthand rather than relying only on later written accounts and archaeological evidence. What event would you choose, and what would you hope to learn by seeing it yourself?
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Welcome to the community, Isla! That’s an interesting question… there are so many events to choose from, aren’t there? I think I’d like to witness Alexander the Great and the burning of Persepolis. What really happened there? Drunken stupor? Wanton destruction? Or an accident?
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Battle of Trafalgar, not to see the death of Nelson, but to watch the process of the battle, also to watch the tactics.
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As long as you’re not in the line of fire! 
Maybe the assassination of Julius Caesar, to see what really happened. Who struck first? Did Caesar know it was coming?
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The point in time and place of who actually created AI and brought to existente and if could understand why and how they concluded this was morallyright for the public knowing how powerful and impact full this would be? Who, where, why and how?
I would like to have been at one the opening nights of an Oscar Wilde play and then been at the club with him afterwards.
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It wasn’t one person discovering it in one moment, it was a gradual thing involving many people and smaller steps. The final important step was made by the Google Translate team, inventing the transformer model, which was intended to improve translation but ended up being the foundation for large language models. Geoffrey Hinton, the “godfather of AI” set out to build AI to better understand the human brain. There’s a great interview with him about it on Big Technology: Spotify
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I’ve actually taken a few days to think about this question. There are so many events I could choose from, but as a bookworm, I think I would have loved to attend the opening of the Library of Alexandria.
For an actual documented event, I think I would go with the Susa Weddings in 324 BCE. I love a good wedding, and I think a wedding with 80 couples marrying would be a fun party.
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Now that would be quite something to witness indeed!
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Plus I would get to dress up in a TOGA!
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I had to think hard about this one and have finally come up with something quite obvious… I would like to be able to witness the siege of Orléans, when Joan of Arc helped to send the English “on their horse”…Some claim it was all down to her, others that she didn’t do that much… I’d love to know.
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Oh yes, I’d love to meet Jeanne d’Arc in any case. Was she a nutcase, or was she truly inspirational? Definitely a curious person in history. When we had our team meeting in Burgundy a few years ago, I was struck by standing in front of stained glass windows in the cathedral, knowing than Jeanne herself would have stood in front of them and seen the very same window.
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Two things, the first one is stolen from Mike Duncan, basically he said he’d love to be a fly on the wall during the carriage ride with Julius Caesar and Octavian. Basically, from what I remember, they had no real interactions outside that one ride in which they happened to be together during the military travel. And from that conversation he decided to make him his heir.
And what happened in the bunker… you know what bunker.
I would say that the events surrounding the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus would be my choice.
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For sheer pleasure, I would have loved to have been present at the first performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony in 1824 at the Kärntnertor Theatre in Vienna, which, by the way, no longer exists.
I would also like to have observed Beethoven at work from a distance, either in his studio or during one of his walks in nature, deep in thought and composing. Observing a genius at work!
I would like to travel back to the era when the Karez canals—which required advanced engineering knowledge—were first used in Turfan, a region that has remained within the borders of Turkic states since the time of the Scythians.
I would like to see and experience the Turkic language, religion, and education system of that time.
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I would choose the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Christ Jesus.
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