Copyright � 2026 by Shane
Tourtellotte
I’ve been lecturing you a lot. I’ve been telling you what to do and not do as a time traveler to keep yourself safe, and to keep the timeline safe. I’ve given you lots of rules; I’ve given you lots of worries. I may have dissuaded some of you from daring to become a time traveler. If you are such a person, you probably stopped reading by this point, so what comes next isn’t for you.
If you are still reading, good. This is where I get to remind you of what an incredible adventure lies before you. The whole of Earth’s history, and pre-history if you’re intrepid enough, is within your reach. Subject to some practical limits, you can go anywhen and anywhere.
So what do you do first?
If you’re lucky, you have one thing you want to do ahead of everything else. If you’re unlucky, you have twelve. The options are so limitless, you may suffer paralysis by analysis in trying to choose one time and place to start. I’ve played up my example eras, but those won’t be to everybody’s taste. Also, if I made one sound especially good, I may just have added to the mass of things you could do, rather than putting it head and shoulders above the rest.
How have I chosen to address this dilemma of excessive options? By giving you lots more. But it’s in a list, which makes it better.
That was a joke, but it was also serious. Instead of a free-floating mass of ideas churning through your head, I’m giving you a structured set of ideas, arranged chronologically. Anything too dangerous to yourself or the timeline has been screened out, with some of those ideas put on their own supplementary list of events not to see. If it’s merely kind of dangerous, I give you appropriate warnings.
Don’t take the upcoming list as authoritative. At least, you don’t need to take it so. You can use it as a jumping-off point for your own ideas, a spur to examining what you want and don’t want out of your time-traveling experience. But if you find yourself freezing up on those ideas, I have a bunch of them you can use, and you’ve already paid for them!
(On the off chance that you’re browsing this section in the bookstore and haven’t actually bought the book yet, now would be a good time.)
So without further padding of the page count, I present to you my Top Fifty Events for a Time-Traveler to Witness:
c. 2535 BC -- Giza, Egypt
Giving exact dates here would be wishful thinking: this far back, historians make only educated guesses about when the various Pharaohs reigned. Their best guess, though, is that this was near the end of the reign of Khafre, so his pyramid, the second of the Great Pyramids of Giza, should be nearly or totally completed. Its near twin, his father Khufu's pyramid, stands off to the northeast. Looks different, doesn't it? That's white limestone facing the pyramid, leaving it smooth and gleaming rather than tan and weathered. The limestone will last three or four millennia, until being stripped away as building material for more mundane edifices.
With dates so uncertain, there's no guarantee what you'll see. Could they still be erecting Khafre's pyramid, and will you be able to learn if the work gangs are slave or free, and how many there were? Will you see the Sphinx, supposedly built by Khafre? Its provenance is also hazy, though most dissenters from the consensus make it older than this (a few say way older). If it's there, at least you'll see it with a nose: that was knocked off by a 14th-century iconoclast.
And you've gotten to see the Pyramids, Wonders of the World, when they were new. That’s a perspective shift.
776 BC -- Olympia Valley, Elis, Greece
This wooded valley along the Alpheus River has been the site of periodic local religious festivals, but King Iphitos of Elis has broader ambitions. He's turning this festival into a Greece-wide event, going so far as to declare a truce in all ongoing wars so athletes can travel safely to his city-state. His idea takes hold, and grows enough that eventually a statue of Zeus will be erected here that is hailed as a Wonder of the World. For today, there's a good turnout joining you in what history records as the first Olympic Games.
The term "Games" is actually a misnomer, as there is only one event: a footrace of roughly two hundred yards, or in Greek measurement, one stadion. (Yes, that's where "stadium" originated.) The athletes probably aren't running naked -- that comes later this century -- but don't be shocked if the history books have it wrong. Watch closely early, in case there's a false start. Early starters are not only disqualified, but beaten.
You can clean up on pre-race wagering, if the Greeks do such a crass thing at a religious festival. The winner will be hometown favorite Koroibos of Elis, a cook in regular life. He will wear the first olive garland, and hear the first songs and odes of tribute, in a tradition that will stretch more than a millennium.
September 490 BC -- Marathon/Athens/Sparta, Greece
Pivotal as Marathon itself was, the legend of the battle rests on what happened after, and before.
The legend says that after the Greek victory, the Athenians sent a herald running back to Athens with the glorious news. He ran the twenty-five miles, reached the city, cried out “Rejoice, we conquer!” -- and fell dead of exhaustion. You can be in Athens for his arrival, contingent on whether he really existed.
In any case, it almost certainly won’t be the Pheidippides or Philippides usually credited with the run. The ancient historian Herodotus identified him with a much greater feat: running the 150 miles from Athens to Sparta, to urge the Spartans to send troops to fight the Persians. He then ran the 150 miles back with news that the Spartans would be coming … eventually. They would be too late to join the battle.
(Modern athletes must be glad the shorter distance was chosen for the famous endurance race, though there is the occasional 150-mile Spartathlon. Yes, they’re gloriously nuts.)
The battle itself is no afterthought, but a neglected masterpiece of strategy. Find a nice promontory to watch Athenian general Miltiades attack while the Persian cavalry is temporarily absent. His strength is on the wings, and it looks bad when the Persians push back his central troops early. That just puts them in the bag, as the Athenian flanks sweep around and surround the Persian army. It’s a slaughter from there, and an example Hannibal would follow to massacre the Romans at Cannae 272 years later, cementing his reputation as a military genius.
What to watch? The big battle, a preliminary to the much greater war a decade hence? Pheidippides’ epic runs to and from Sparta? His successor’s run to Athens? To see it all you’d need a -- oh, that’s right.
Late September, 480 BC -- Island of Salamis, in the Saronic Gulf off Greece
Thermopylae, you say? Bah! The 300 Spartans got outflanked and slaughtered there, and the Persian army swept south to capture and sack Athens. Some victory. If you crave a second helping of Greek heroism triumphing over Persian tyranny, it's the subsequent naval battle at Salamis you want.
Situate yourself atop a hill on the east coast of the island of Salamis, across the strait from occupied Attica. The Athenians recently evacuated the population of their conquered city to Salamis, so you may have some competition for prime space. When dawn comes, you will see Mount Aegaleos a couple miles across the water. Near the summit will be King Xerxes of the Persians, sitting on his throne to watch the battle unfolding before him. Shoot him a few obscene gestures if you like: he won't be able to do anything about it.
The Greek fleet is outnumbered two to one, maybe more, but they have lured the Persians into narrow waters, with no opportunity to flank the Greeks with their superior numbers the way their compatriots got flanked at Marathon. In a battle lasting all day -- no lack of spectacle for you -- they will smash up the Persians, sinking as much as half their fleet. Xerxes flees back to Asia, with an escort of 60,000 soldiers, leaving his remaining armed forces to conclusively lose the war next year. Make as many movies about the 300 as you like, but it is really the 350 -- the ships of the Greek navy -- that turn the tide and save infant Western civilization.
399 BC -- The Agora of Athens
It is one of the most famous intellectual martyrdoms ever recorded. Socrates, the great philosopher of his age, put on trial for his teachings and condemned by a jury of his own countrymen to drink the hemlock. As portrayed by the writings of Plato and Xenophon, it stands as a searing indictment of mob rule, history's greatest argument against democracy other than the election of [insert your least-favorite politician here].
But the image of Socrates the victim may be false. He was often a disdainful, condescending gadfly, enjoying provoking listeners to anger with his arguments. He did preach strongly against the Athenian democracy, and numbered among his students two men, Alcibiades and Critias, who would briefly overthrow it in favor of autocracies. Accounts of the trial come from Socrates' own pupils, who may have erased any troublesome facts about the prosecution adverse to their mentor. Could Athens really have been protecting itself against the violent subversions of a firebrand who had already triggered two revolutions? Could Socrates have been inciting jurors into taking away his life as ultimate proof of some arguing point?
Do make wider use of your trip here -- visit the Acropolis, buy up some lost plays -- but don't miss what actually deserves the sobriquet of The Trial of the Century, maybe the Millennium. Be prepared for anything. It might even confirm the historical version. Or it could turn the foundation of Greek philosophy on its ear. Either way, it's sure to be exciting.
July 21, 356 BC -- Ephesus, Asia Minor
The Temple of Artemis, one of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world, was destroyed and rebuilt three times. Today you're visiting the second version, which took nearly two centuries to complete. It's reputedly the first Greek temple ever built of marble, and the architects did not lack for ambition: it's longer and wider than a football field. Inside, a double row of columns forty to sixty feet high leads to the tremendous dark-wood effigy of Artemis. She might not look wholly Greek: a local deity may have been syncretically combined with her.
Drink in the awe. But do it fast, or you'll die in the fire.
This is the day that a narcissistic vandal sets ablaze the roof beams and burns this wonder to the ground. His motivation: to immortalize his name as the destroyer of the Temple of Artemis. The Ephesians not only executed him, but forbade mention of his name on pain of death, to frustrate his vicious ambition. Their aim failed, as historian and aptly-named jerk Theopompus recorded his name as -- you know, I'm not giving him the satisfaction. He deserves obscurity. You want to know his name, you ask him while he's committing his arson. Leave me out of it.
Spring 333 BC -- Gordium, Phrygia
An ancient oracle declared that the next man entering the capital of Phrygia driving an ox-cart would become king. The lucky farmer, Gordias, made his entrance, was duly proclaimed king, and the ox-cart was eventually dedicated to a Phrygian god the Greeks would equate to Zeus. The cart was tied to a post with a massive, intricate knot -- the Gordian Knot.
When Alexander the Great entered Gordium early in his campaign of conquest, he felt compelled to try to undo the knot. After some futile fumbling, he -- well, the stories differ. The version everyone has heard is that he cut the knot with his sword. Other sources, though, claim he pulled the knot out of its pole pin, exposing the ends and making the untying trivial. If you're fortunate, you can tag along and see which he does. If, more likely, you aren't, you can probably get the story from gossiping soldiers shortly thereafter.
It's also said that he who undid the Gordian Knot would conquer Asia. Never mind that back then this meant Asia Minor (roughly modern Turkey), not the whole continent. This prophesy was really made up after the fact to flatter Alexander. He wasn't staking his claim to a continent: he was just cheating on a puzzle. But at least you can learn exactly how he cheated.
226 BC -- Island of Rhodes
You're looking for a specific date for this visit, but unfortunately it isn't recorded in history: some sources even think the year was 227. Do some quiet research while visiting Rome or the Library at Alexandria to nail down the date, then arrive one day earlier for your first good look at the Colossus of Rhodes.
The titanic statue of the Greek god Helios was built to celebrate the defeat of a siege by Demetrius of Cyprus: adding insult to defeat, the Rhodians sold off the abandoned Cypriot siege equipment to fund the project. Numerous depictions have him straddling the harbor entrance, sailors presumably looking up in awe as they sailed beneath him. Entertaining, but bunk: contemporary materials and building techniques weren't strong enough to support such a pose. He'll be standing on shore instead. Note down his pose and the shape of the pedestal for the historians, and do it fast.
The next day, you'll want to be on the crest of a hill near Rhodes, with a good view of the harbor and statue, yet someplace with no chance of a rockslide coming down on your head. Get your center of gravity low, and maintain your concentration when the ground starts shaking. You should ride out the earthquake safely, but the Colossus won't: it will snap at the knees and collapse backward (onto land, fortunately not blocking the harbor). It will never be rebuilt, due either to the Delphic Oracle's warning or lack of more siegeworks to sell off, but the ruins will remain a tourist attraction for centuries.
Mid-March 44 BC -- The Forum of Rome
You're not here for the assassination of Julius Caesar: I will explain why later. You're here instead for his funeral. (Historians are uncertain of the date, placing it somewhere between the 17th and the 23rd. Geez, if Caesar hadn't been murdered on the Ides, would they have misplaced that date, too?) And if this is Caesar's funeral, that means Mark Antony is giving the funeral oration.
Shakespeare wasn't filling a historical blank when he wrote his version of this speech. We have fragments of Antony's actual oration, which varied widely in content, but not in intent. On the scene, you'll be able to hear how Antony recited the civic honors granted to Caesar, saying this was the public's tribute, not his. You'll hear him recite the oaths the citizenry swore to protect Caesar, and the curse falling on those who failed to defend, or avenge, him. You'll hear his oratory rise to fever pitch, capped by his raising the dagger-torn, blood-soaked toga for the crowd to see. And when it's all over, you just might be moved to join the mob in running through the streets of Rome to burn down the houses of the conspirators.
At the very least, you'll be able to say whether Marlon Brando's version in the 1950s movie was better.
April 44 BC -- Alexandria, Egypt
You'll finish your abridged tour of the Seven Wonders (or start it, or reach the middle -- time travel's flexible that way) here, at the site of the Pharos lighthouse. Walk from the city of Alexandria to Pharos Island across a lengthy causeway called the Heptastadion. (Remember that term from your Olympic visit?) The lighthouse is on the northeast tongue of Pharos Island, across a thin isthmus, or possibly across a second causeway: history is predictably fuzzy here. This puts you at the mouth of Alexandria's Eastern Harbor (the Heptastadion separates it from the Western Harbor).
Record the since-forgotten precise shape of the lighthouse, but keep an eye on the Mediterranean. If you've timed your trip right, you will see an ornate barge arriving at speed from the west. It will sail into the Eastern Harbor and head directly toward the palace in the Royal Quarter (just east of south from your location). This will be Queen Cleopatra, who had been visiting her patron and lover in Rome, right until he was assassinated. She then skipped town in some haste. With sharp eyes, or well-concealed binoculars, you may make out the face that allegedly bewitched Julius Caesar and Mark Antony, and see whether it was really her personality that attracted them.
December 20, 44 BC –- The Forum of Rome
The drama and upheaval following Caesar’s assassination continue today, on familiar ground. Call this sequel “The Republic Strikes Back.”
The Forum was the center of Roman life, economic, religious, and political. Meetings of the General Assembly, the popular balance to the aristocratic Senate, were held here, and could get quite raucous. Today’s big crowd should be well-behaved, though, the better to hear the most admired orator of his age, or possibly any other.
Marcus Tullius Cicero is on a mission, either to resuscitate a dying Republic or to resurrect a dead one. His target is Mark Antony, whose power and influence he’s trying to break. Cicero has begun a series of denunciations of Caesar’s one-time lieutenant, which he has styled the Philippics after a series of Greek speeches against the conquering Philip of Macedon. He gave his Third Philippic to the Senate earlier today. You’re now listening to the Fourth Philippic, the first he has delivered in public.
(If you hear him refer to Julius Caesar as though he’s alive, you aren’t in the wrong year. He’s referring to Octavian, who is going by his posthumously adoptive father’s name for the political benefits.)
Was Cicero’s reputation possibly overblown, puffed up by judicious editing of his speeches for publication? Did his enemy Antony have him beat with his funeral oration as a persuader of men? Or instead did the written word not do justice to Cicero’s rhetorical powers? You’ll be able to judge his oratorical success, though history gave the final judgment on his political success. Within a year, Antony had allied with Octavian, and had Cicero murdered. In Rome, not even Cicero’s pen was mightier than the sword.
August 15, 29 BC -- Rome
For pageantry and spectacle, nothing beats a Roman triumph. This procession granted to a victorious general is perhaps the highest honor Rome can bestow. Imagine a Manhattan ticker-tape parade, only bigger and gaudier (and with less litter: paper was expensive back in Rome).
This one for Octavian, soon to be Augustus Caesar, is his third in three days. The first was for beating miscellaneous Pannonians and Dalmatians; the second was for routing his erstwhile fellow Triumvir Mark Antony at Actium. This one is the capper, celebrating his subjugation of Egypt, and the late Queen Cleopatra. She was meant to march in the parade as his prisoner, but her suicide forestalled that. He found a way around it.
History doesn't record precisely the nature of the effigy of Cleopatra carried in the procession. Some think it was a painted image; others believe it was a gold-plated statue reclining on a couch. What isn't disputed is that she is portrayed with an asp wrapped around her arm, its bite supposedly the method of her suicide. The asp story itself is uncertain: the snake was never seen, but two pinpricks on Cleopatra's arm sent people jumping to conclusions. No matter how big the crowds around you lining the streets, you should finally have a pretty good look at Cleopatra, in case you missed her at Alexandria.
c. 40 -- Olympia Valley, Elis, Greece
Yes, this is another repeat, at least on this list. (Time travel being what it is, you could be making these stops in any order.) The locals are still holding the Olympic Games here, but you’re visiting for something else. It’s one more of the Wonders of the Ancient World, the Temple of Zeus.
The statue within of a seated King of Olympus was created by the sculptor Phidias, who also made the statue of Athena in the Parthenon. (You saw that, or will, when attending the trial of Socrates.) This massive masterwork struck awe into those who saw it for centuries. Our favorite encyclopedist Pliny the Elder hailed it, half a millennium after its creation, as something “which no one ever equaled.”
Someone, though, would think himself its equal, or better. That was Rome’s current Emperor, Caligula.
You’ve timed your visit for the day Caligula’s workmen have come to the temple. Depending on the version, he’ll either be having the statue’s head removed and replaced with his own, or the whole statue put aboard a ship headed to Rome, where it will be decapitated and recapitated. Legend tells us that as the crew prepared to do the job, the temple resonated with a deep laugh that could have issued from the throat of Zeus himself. The workers ran, leaving their impious duty unfulfilled, for which Caligula would not live long enough to punish them.
This is your chance to see whether the legend is true. It is not your chance to secretly install a 21st-century sound system and play the greatest prank in history. Why would you even think that? I would never encourage you to imperil the timeline by doing such a hilarious and awesome thing. Never.
64 -- Naples
You want danger? You want terror? You want a true taste of the worst that ancient times had to offer? You're about to get it, because you're in the audience for the debut performance of the Emperor Nero as a singer and lyrist. And you can't leave.
Public performers like actors and musicians were an unsavory underclass in early Imperial Rome (see also the 1602 entry). It was scandalous enough when Nero began holding private musical contests so he could compete, and presumably win regardless of actual quality. When he gave this public performance in Naples, however, he crossed a line from undignified to degrading, something like a serving President performing on The Masked Singer (which hasn't happened yet as I write).
He's pretty awful, but heckling him from your seat is a sure ticket to horrible death (though attending under the pseudonym "Corvus" wins you style points in my book). He will eventually hire professional applauders for his performances, which lets you know what he expects now. The gates are barred, so you're there for the duration unless you fake death or labor pains. Even when an earthquake strikes the theater, nobody is allowed to flee. (That temblor is today considered a foreshock of something you'll be witnessing fifteen years from now.) Rest assured, though: once the recital is finished, the theater will be successfully evacuated before it collapses, completing Jove's "two thumbs down" on the performance.
After this, you'll be ready to handle anything. Like ...
July 18, 64 -- eastern Palatine Hill, Rome
Below you tonight spreads the fabled Circus Maximus, track for Rome's beloved chariot races. In the cramped cluster of shops at its southeast corner, a fire breaks out. Worse, an east wind whips up, and the fire spreads rapidly along the length of the Circus. Rome has suffered many large fires in its history, but this is the fire, The Burning of Rome that destroyed three-quarters of this great city over six days. Having seen its start, you might want to leave now, before it starts climbing the Palatine Hill and the dark streets grow too choked with panicked refugees for you to get away yourself. (Unless your machine is safely nearby.)
You could pop in later near the palace of that Roman idol, Nero, to see whether he did actually climb to the roof and, playing his lyre (not fiddling), sing of the fall of Troy. Many blamed Nero for the inferno, though the thugs hurling torches and claiming they were under orders may just have been creating looting opportunities for themselves. Nero didn't help his case, however, by building on the ashes an immense palace for his own personal use, and a statue of himself so colossally huge that the Colosseum was named after it. He did find a way to deflect blame, though: he accused the Christians of starting the fire, and began their persecution by crucifixion, immolation, and the wild beasts of the arena.
So yes, there was something about Nero worse than his singing.
October 24, 79 -- Misenum
Minor earthquakes have been rocking this Roman town for four days. Few inhabitants realize that this, the turbulent seas, and the nervous animals are presaging anything. You, however, will have your gaze fixed just north of east across the Bay of Naples, at the mountain twenty miles away: Mount Vesuvius. Just after noon, it will begin the eruption that destroys three towns, Pompeii the most famous. You'll be able to watch safely for the rest of the day, and might even risk lingering tomorrow when the rest of Misenum's population flees: the ash-fall here is a mere blizzard, not the crushing blanket that buries Pompeii.
I choose this vantage point because of two people. One is our old companion Pliny the Elder, now commanding the fleet stationed here. He sails that fleet into the teeth of the eruption to rescue a friend trapped near Pompeii, but the ash overwhelms his weak lungs and he perishes before the boats can get him away. Left behind in Misenum is his nephew, Pliny the Younger, who at age seventeen does his proto-scientist uncle proud by producing the only surviving eyewitness accounts of Vesuvius' eruption. In honor of both Plinies, eruptions that blast large columns of ash and gases into the stratosphere are called Plinian eruptions. I hope they would have appreciated it.
March 28, 193 -- outside the headquarters of the Praetorian Guard, Rome
Things have been up and down in Rome since Nero’s reign. This day is decidedly down.
The Emperor Pertinax has been assassinated, not quite three months after his predecessor, Commodus, was assassinated. The Praetorian Guard, ostensible guarantors of the Emperor’s safety -- and the ones who assassinated Pertinax -- are consulting with Pertinax’s father-in-law, Titus Flavius Sulpicianus. They are negotiating over the price for their support of Sulpicianus’ bid to succeed to the emperorship.
The negotiation gets more vigorous when someone new arrives outside headquarters, where you are watching. It is Marcus Didius Severus Julianus, who has his own claim to press, and will back it with money. Thus begins the auction of the Roman Empire, with soldiers relaying the bids of the rivals, one inside and one outside, back and forth between each other.
Didius Julianus has the better argument: he says an Emperor Sulpicianus might seek revenge on those Praetorians who killed his son-in-law. He also has the better sweetener: 6250 denarii per guardsman, 25 percent higher than Sulpicianus can offer. He wins the Praetorians’ backing, meaning he becomes Emperor.
The sordid affair has what passes for a happy conclusion. There were massive public demonstrations against the new Emperor (which it may even be safe for you to join), and various generals began marching for Rome, angling to overthrow him and avenge Pertinax. This worried the Praetorians, and Didius Julianus being slow in coughing up their full payment didn’t stiffen their spines on his behalf. Before the usurping armies could arrive, the Guard served them up a sacrifice, assassinating the man who bought the Empire after an even shorter reign than Pertinax had. For the infamous Year of the Five Emperors, that was an upbeat ending.
Late 527 -- Constantinople
Constantinople has had it rough lately. Five years ago, partisans of two chariot racing teams joined forces in protest against Justinian, the Byzantine Emperor. (Well, we call them Byzantine. They called themselves Romans. Be aware.) By “protest,” I mean the Nika Riots that burned down half the city and almost sent Justinian fleeing for his life. For a modern parallel, imagine fans of Arsenal and Manchester United joining forces and almost deposing the King. (Maybe I shouldn’t give the yobbos ideas …)
The Emperor was left with serious rebuilding, including of the church where he had been coronated. He made that church the centerpiece of his reconstruction. By its completion, the Holy Wisdom Church -- the Hagia Sophia -- would be the centerpiece of the city, and the whole empire.
You’ll be visiting on the day of its dedication. Its sheer scope will have been visible long before today, with a dome larger than any that would be built for another nine hundred years. Inside, you’ll see the innovative architecture that made such a dome possible, though it would be altered in the future to be even more impressive. The interior won’t include many of the mosaics existing today: across fifteen hundred years, decorations have been revised many times when not outright destroyed in fits of iconoclasm. Neither will Hagia Sophia sport its minarets, added by conquering Muslims half a millennium ago.
All you’ll get to see is the original wonder, in a form long since lost. Take pictures. Byzantine scholars will thank you.
July 4/5, 1054 -- Island of Hawaii
You aren't here for the usual Hawaiian vacation. There won't be any sunbathing, since you're arriving around midnight. Find a clear spot, maybe on the south slope of Mauna Kea, and fix your eyes on the constellation Taurus, right where the Crab Nebula is today. Bring a telescope if you like, but you won't really need it.
Very roughly around one-thirty in the morning (allow yourself an hour or two leeway on each side: astronomical records that far back are sketchy), you will see what created the Crab Nebula. It's a supernova blazing to life, and I mean blazing: it will be visible in broad daylight for over three weeks. A star four thousand light-years away has blown itself up, and that ever-expanding nebula is all that's left of it today. You have to be in Hawaii, since the explosion happens too close to dusk in China and too close to dawn in California to be properly appreciated. Enjoy the sight: supernovas happen only once every few centuries in this galaxy, and no living human has seen one with the naked eye. (At least as of this writing. If Betelgeuse has gone supernova since this went to press, don't blame me: I wasn't anywhere near it.)
October 14, 1066 -- Blackhorse Hill, outside Hastings, England
This is probably as close to the Battle of Hastings as you'll want to get, though you might risk edging forward onto Telham Hill along the road that Duke William of Normandy's army marched this morning to meet King Harold. You're risking being spotted by someone in the Norman army, possibly an injured soldier limping to the rear. If you don't want to hide, just look curious and answer any challenge in good old modern English. No one will understand you, and they may take you for some innocent wayfarer and leave you alone.
The battle is a long, grinding grapple between evenly matched forces, about eight thousand apiece. No tactic William can devise will let him break the English shield wall on Senlac Ridge, and the forests and marsh bordering the narrow battleground permit him no flanking maneuvers. As dusk approaches, William will be desperate, for a draw in hostile territory is effectively defeat. He risks bringing his archers, their quivers emptied by earlier volleys, up close to the lines to gather their expended arrows. They then launch this scraped-together salvo, angled high to arc over the English shields, as the Norman army makes its final charge.
Spot King Harold in the opposing army, and try to catch the moment when he unwisely looks up and gets an arrow in the eye. Or see whether it was a different variety of fatal wound, and debunk one of history's more graphic tales. Either way, Harold is fallen, his army breaks, and a little luck has given the Duke of Normandy the name he will bear throughout eternity: William the Conqueror.
July 17, 1429 -- Cathedral of Notre-Dame at Reims, France
The Hundred Years War is in its tenth decade, and has almost a quarter-century to go. (Blame rounding.) Much of France is under English control, but an advancing French army has been changing that. Its leader, Charles the dauphin of France, entered Reims triumphantly last evening. Today he’ll be at the cathedral for a hastily arranged ceremony which will make him what he technically has been the last seven years: the king of France.
Coronations of French kings have occurred at this cathedral for the last two centuries, and it is a beautiful site for them. Luckily, it isn’t the closed ceremony it would become in later years, so you can get inside for the proceedings, even if it is crowded. Many parts of the coronation will seem strange to your modern eyes, starting with the four knights who enter the cathedral on horseback. The part that may seem strange to contemporaries is the youth at Charles’ side, bearing a standard, then kneeling and embracing him by his legs once he is king. That youth is a large part of the reason why Charles is here.
She, not he, is Jeanne La Pucelle. She never heard in her lifetime the name by which we know her: Joan of Arc.
Her short but astonishing career perhaps reached its climax this day, two months after her victory at Orléans. Charles, glad to use the symbolic Joan, found the actual headstrong and aggressive Joan increasingly inconvenient politically. The less than two years remaining of her life would bring frustration, capture, trial, and burning at the stake. Charles worked to rehabilitate her decades later, when the symbol was useful to him again.
You can appreciate the real Joan today. Better, perhaps, than seeing her when she burns.
October 31, 1517 -- Schlosskirche, Wittenberg
It is one of the great turning points of history. Martin Luther, theology professor at Wittenberg University, has run out of patience with the practice of indulgences, priests selling absolution of one's sins for mere money. No matter that much of the money goes to rebuild St. Peter's Basilica in Rome: holy ends do not justify base means, especially when turning sinners away from the true faith and penance that Luther is convinced alone can bring salvation. His sermons ineffective in stemming the corrupt tide, he composes his Ninety-Five Theses denouncing the practice, and defiantly nails the list to the door of Castle Church in Wittenberg for all to see.
It probably didn't happen that way, but there's still something to watch.
Posting questions on a church door was then the customary method of requesting a public debate, something akin to using a bulletin board. The church door would have had a place in which to post such documents, obviating the need for carpentry tools. After sending his theses to a few ecclesiastical superiors, Luther would have publicly displayed his assertions there at the church where he preached -- and for which he presumably had more respect than to ruin the door with nails.
No melodramatic violence: merely the drama of taking a stand of conscience that would eventually crack the Christian Church apart. Maybe the more gripping for being the more quiet.
May 31 to June 24, 1520 -- Between Ardres, France and Guines, Calais Pale of England
There are numerous motives for time travel: awe, discovery, enrichment. Sometimes, though, you just want some fun. So let’s go crash the ultimate party.
Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, adviser to King Henry VIII, hoped to undo centuries-long enmity between England and France. He arranged for Henry and the French king, François I, to meet outside Calais, the toehold England still held on French soil. Preparations soon spiraled in lavishness, each side trying to outdo the other in splendor and glory. The meeting ground would come to be known as the Field of Cloth of Gold, after the fabric made of silk and gold thread that dominated decorations and was as luxurious as it sounds.
You’ll need to dress up for the occasion, but it’s worth it. The French reside in gaudy pavilions and tents, the one for François easily a hundred feet high and covered in blue velvet and you-know-what. The palace raised for Henry covers about a hectare, and boasts a gilt fountain that gushes not only water but wine! There are banquets, masked dances, jousts and other combats (non-lethal, of course) to entertain the thousands of guests and members of entourages. Legend says Henry even challenged François to wrestle -- surely to Wolsey’s horror -- and promptly got thrown. (The same legend says Henry later beat François in archery to even the score.)
For gossip fodder, keep an eye on the French ranks. An English lady of nineteen has been living in Paris, and likely came to the festivities. See if you can spot the moment Henry VIII first meets Anne Boleyn.
The gala ran for more than three weeks -- and within two years, England and France were back at war anyway. It was fun while it lasted.
August 7 (or July 28), 1588 -- Calais, France
The date is reckoned two ways: by the Spanish Gregorian calendar and the English Julian. Either way, the previous day the Spanish Armada anchored off the coast here in a long defensive crescent formation, intact from English harassment. The plan was to join with troop-carrying barges based in Spanish-held Dunkirk, escort the barges across the Channel, land in England, and overthrow Protestant Queen Elizabeth in the name of God and the Pope. But lacking adequate communication in that era, the Armada's been caught short. The troops and barges will take several days to be ready, assuming a nuisance blockade by light Dutch ships can be cleared away.
At midnight ending the day in question, the trailing English fleet exploits its chance, and sends in the fireships. Vessels loaded with combustibles are set alight and sent drifting toward the Armada. To you and anyone else watching from shore, the floating infernos illuminating the night are a garish spectacle as they creep toward the Spanish. Two fireships are towed clear, but the others send most of the Armada scattering eastward for safety. The English pursue, joining battle about ten miles down the coast outside Gravelines and inflicting the tactical defeat that renders the strategy of invasion hopeless.
You could probably walk from Calais to Gravelines in enough time to witness most of that climactic battle, except for the guarded border between France and the Spanish Netherlands in the way. Use your time machine instead. Convenient, isn't it?
October 21, 1600 -- Mt. Ibuki, north of Sekigahara, Japan
It's eight o'clock, and you're on the low wooded slopes of a mountain, between the two forks of a stream joining below you. The morning fog dissipates to reveal, laid out to the south between you and the town of Sekigahara, the main bodies of the armies of Ishida Mitsunari and Tokugawa Ieyasu, over eighty thousand strong apiece. From your position under cover, you have a ringside seat for the battle that will end over a century of feudal factionalism and unify Japan under one ruler.
For hours, infantry will collide, muskets and arquebuses fire, and samurai clash sword against sword on a muddy, churned-up plain. In a sense, though, the battle has already been decided. Tokugawa has prepared the battleground well with his diplomacy. Around noon, Ishida will signal Kobayakawa Hideaki on his far right flank to join the attack. Kobayakawa, promised land for his betrayal, will first hesitate, then attack Ishida's forces. Far to the east, a second erstwhile Ishida ally will refuse to move his men against Tokugawa, blocking other, more loyal forces behind his. Ishida's army crumbles, and Tokugawa is well on his way to becoming the shogun of all Japan. (Make sure to depart before the final debacle: in defeat, Ishida fled the battlefield up your mountain.)
1602 -- Southwark, London, England
Southwark is a district on the south bank of the Thames, and it's not the good side of London. You'll be passing more than your share of bawdy houses on the way to your destination. You may also pass the Bear Garden, an amphitheater built specifically for bear-baitings. Head east from here, to an establishment considered even more low-class and vulgar at the time: the Globe Theatre.
Actors were considered the dregs of society back then, more Charlie Sheen than Laurence Olivier. Women attending the theatre often wore veils or masks (yes, really), both to preserve their reputations and to avoid catching the plague from any stray carriers in the audience (again, yes, really). There are diamonds in the rough, of course, and you're in attendance for a true gem: Hamlet.
We don't know exactly when this play premiered, but it was no later than the 1602 repertory season. Even if it premiered earlier, they'll still be staging the popular play at times this year. Buy one of the better seats for two or three pence (not a one-penny groundling seat), and watch one of the greatest creations of English literature played for its original intended audience. Pay attention to the actor performing as the ghost of Hamlet's father. History is pretty sure that was William Shakespeare playing the role. After the play, slip backstage and compliment his performance, and writing. By now he doesn't really need the added encouragement, but it wouldn't hurt.
May 23, 1618 -- Hradschin (Prague Castle), Prague, Bohemia
Never before or since has such a destructive war been triggered by such a comical event. Protestants felt their religious liberties threatened by the imminent accession of a new Catholic King of Bohemia. An inflammatory letter from the prospective Emperor's advisor provoked a mob exhorted by a Protestant count to bribe their way into Prague Castle, where the Emperor's Regents were meeting. You'll be outside the castle tower when two of the Regents, along with a secretary, are hurled out a high window, falling seventy feet into a dry moat -- filled with horse manure. The soft landing saves their lives, if not their dignity. It does not save the confrontation from brewing up into the Thirty Years War, a religious conflict that devastated Central Europe and killed millions.
And it all began with a poop joke.
This is known as the Defenestration of Prague ("defenestration" meaning "throwing something out a window"), and bizarrely enough, it was neither the first nor the last. Two centuries before, a mob of Hussites (dissidents against the Catholic Church: yes, it's a pattern) defenestrated over a dozen city officials, thus triggering a string of religious wars (as I said, a pattern). In 1948, Czechoslovakia’s not-Communist-enough Foreign Minister Jan Masaryk fell to his death from a window. The Soviet-backed government insisted it was suicide. So if you're ever walking the streets of Prague, past, present, or future, and value your physical safety: keep watching the skies!
April 11, 1727 -- Thomaskirche (St. Thomas Church), Leipzig, Saxony
It’s Good Friday, and one must expect attendance to be heavy for the service at Thomaskirche. (It’s a Lutheran church, so Lutheran that Martin Luther once preached there.) The director of church music for the city of Leipzig has something worthy of the occasion planned for today, which may draw even more worshippers. He has a good reputation in Leipzig, though not as great as the one posterity would grant to Johann Sebastian Bach.
The Saint Matthew Passion is a titanic work, clocking in at something near three hours, and this is its debut. It’s powerful enough standing alone, though less theatrical and more intimate than you might expect from a composition of its size. Experiencing it the first time it has ever been performed, on a holy Christian day, with Bach himself conducting, promises to be a transcendent experience.
If it’s too crowded inside, consider standing outside the church to listen. If this works poorly for you, consider a service earlier in Bach’s term at Leipzig. He has conducted the music at both Thomaskirche and Nikolaikirche since 1723, with a weekly flow of cantatas as part of the Sunday services for his first couple of years. Good Friday of 1724 boasted the debut of his Saint John Passion, though he would rewrite it several times into the version now known. You may also try March 23, 1731, when he first had his Saint Mark Passion performed. Only the libretto survives: the music has not come down to us -- yet.
Shall I hint more broadly? Shall I mention how many of Bach’s other works have vanished? No, I don’t believe I shall.
April 19, 1775 -- Lexington Common, Massachusetts Bay Colony
By the dawn’s early light -- literally: it’s five in the morning -- a detachment of British troops marches into the little town of Lexington, on their way to Concord to seize a cache of military supplies. A small militia company, comprised of men revolted by years of British heavy-handedness, stands in their way. That is, until their leader, Captain John Parker, sees the opposing force is nine times the size of his. He orders his militiamen to disperse, but they haven’t fully responded before a shot rings out. Battle erupts, the first battle of the American Revolution.
You want to be distant enough to avoid the crossfire, but close enough to resolve some mysteries of the skirmish. The biggest one is, was it a Briton or American who fired the fabled shot heard ‘round the world? (Emerson’s poem placed it at Concord. That was poetic license.) You’d also like to learn whether Captain Parker uttered the stirring words attributed to him (ending with “If they mean to have a war, let it begin here”) before trying and failing to stand aside.
The battle here is no inspiration, a fifth of the Americans cut down for one wounded redcoat, but the more adventurous can follow the force Parker pulls back together. As British regulars recoil from their bloodying at Concord, he ambushes them at a rocky hillside in a maneuver called Parker’s Revenge. Do this only if you can be sure of not being mistaken for a combatant. Female time-travelers will be at a distinct advantage here. Take those where you can get them.
November 21, 1783 -- Château de la Muette, Paris, France
It’s a lovely day for a wonder of the age. In the garden of the home of King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette, those clever and inventive Montgolfier brothers have set up their latest hot-air balloon. Not content with sending some livestock aloft, as they did two months ago at Versailles, today they are putting human pilots in their balloon -- though not themselves. In a 25-minute flight across more than five miles, Messrs. Jean-Francois Pilâtre de Rozier and Francois Laurent, marquis d’Arlandes, will achieve humanity’s dream of millennia.
You didn’t have to wheedle your way into this exclusive crowd to see a Montgolfier balloon. You could have watched their initial experiment last year in Annonay, which broke loose and drifted over a mile before landing and being destroyed by shocked peasants with pitchforks. Their test back in June at Annonay went far better, and their September display at Versailles drew a crowd of more than a hundred thousand, including again the King and Queen. None of those events had the guest in attendance today: Benjamin Franklin.
The American minister (ambassador) to France, Franklin recently finished his work helping to negotiate the Treaty of Paris, ending the Revolutionary War and acknowledging America’s independence. Today, he’s expanding his long-standing embrace of science, watching this demonstration of world-leading technology. He’ll probably be in the mood to talk with a stranger (especially one who sounds reasonably American), quite expansively, about science, invention, and the future. This is, after all, a man who wrote a few months ago:
“I begin to be almost sorry I was born so soon, since I cannot have the happiness of knowing what will be known 100 years hence.”
My guess is, you can relate.
July 14, 1789 -- Paris, France
Hopefully, you got a good look at Louis and Marie the last time you were here. You won’t be seeing them very much longer.
Unrest has been on a rising simmer in France for a couple of years, but the King just turned up the heat. He’s dismissed a reformist finance minister, and is gathering troops to the capital, presumably to dissolve the fractious National Constituent Assembly. Commoners are infuriated. Earlier this morning they plundered muskets and cannons from the Invalides military hospital. Now they approach the Bastille, a hulking fortress often used to house political prisoners, that has become a symbol of royal tyranny.
The crowd calls out the prison governor, demanding that he surrender the gunpowder stored there. He receives a delegation, but his drawn-out negotiation exhausts the mob’s patience. They infiltrate and swarm into the Bastille, but are driven off bloodily. That afternoon, they bring up the cannons. The governor surrenders -- and a few hours later, the mob is carrying his head on a pike.
If you keep a sensible distance, you should be fairly safe witnessing the event where French unrest became the French Revolution. The revolutionaries freed exactly seven prisoners, none of them political, and would make a show of sending the key to the Bastille as a gift to newly elected American president George Washington. These symbols would soon pale before the cascade of events that ended a king’s reign, and set the stage for terror’s reign and then Napoleon’s reign.
The symbol of the Bastille itself would endure … as would the remarkable ruler spawned in its wake.
July 11, 1804 -- Weehawken, New Jersey
There are trees flanking this ledge of ground above the Hudson River, so you will have somewhere to conceal yourself. You’ll need to be in place by six this morning, because at half-past six a rowboat crossing the Hudson will arrive. The Vice-President of the United States, along with his second, will disembark and begin clearing debris from the rocky shelf. Within half an hour, a second rowboat will reach the shore. Alexander Hamilton will climb up to the dueling ground, and the preliminaries will begin for this affair of honor.
The political rivalry between Hamilton and Aaron Burr had escalated to a fury seldom seen even in our age. Our rivals tend to use the might of the government against each other: for these two, it was more personal. Hamilton didn’t evade Burr’s challenge to a duel, but he disliked the illegal practice, especially after his own son was killed in a duel -- on this very ground. We know Hamilton intended to miss his target, and did in the event. What the confused record doesn’t tell and what you can learn is whether he fired first and deliberately wide, or discharged his weapon by reflex after receiving the pistol-ball that would take his life.
For Burr, as history tells, did not throw away his shot.
Incidentally, you need not worry about Hamilton accidentally plugging you. The bullet lodged a dozen feet up in a cedar tree. Just don’t be directly in line behind it, so witnesses’ eyes turn your way. Also, do try to depart promptly. The owner of this ground hates having it used for duels, and he might take that out on you.
March 7, 1815 -- Laffrey, south of Grenoble, France
Six days ago, Napoleon Bonaparte landed on the southern coast of France, breaking free from exile on Elba. He's been marching north toward Paris ever since, accompanied by about a thousand soldiers. Today, on this village field, the forces of King Louis XVIII have arrived, in the form of the Fifth Regiment, to end his progress and take him prisoner.
As Bonaparte approaches the arrays of musketry and bayonets, he has his men lower their weapons and rides ahead, alone. Fifty feet from the first line, he dismounts his horse and walks slowly toward them. "Soldiers, do you recognize me?" he shouts. (Or something very close. Of course, you're taking notes for the historical record.) He throws open his gray overcoat, offering them his chest, and says, "If there is one among you who wants to kill his Emperor, here I am!"
His grand gamble succeeds. The regiment cries "Vive l'Empereur" as one, abandoning King for Emperor. Within days France is his again.
Forget the dream falling to ashes three months later at Waterloo. Forget that Napoleon is arguably the first modern totalitarian dictator, building personal glory on the deaths of millions. This moment encapsulates the boldness and flair that made him a redoubtable general and won the devotion of the French nation to this day. As the French would say, what a gesture.
August 25, 1830 -- outside the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie, Brussels
Music critics still love writing about how the premiere of Igor Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring caused a riot at the theater. I raise them: here's a performance that ignited not just a riot, but a revolution.
In 1830, the United Kingdom of the Netherlands comprised what today is Holland and Belgium, and the Belgians were in a ferment, chafing over matters of representation, religion, language, even trade policy. A July revolution in France moving that country closer to popular sovereignty inspired many fellow French-speaking Belgians. The Netherlands government, as one of its appeasing half-measures, allowed a special performance of a previously banned opera, in honor of the king's birthday.
They couldn't have picked a worse one. La Muette de Portici was a romantic work full of revolutionary sentiments, set against the 17th-century uprising of Naples against its Spanish masters. You won't be able to get inside, but you can join the huge crowd of eager radicals outside the theater. They'll hear the constant enthusiastic applause inside, and echo it. After one particularly incendiary duet, the spectators will burst out of the theater, howling for vengeance against their Dutch overlords. The outside crowd will join, and a night of pillage and arson ensues.
You won't join them, but they won't need you. The Dutch authorities, still temporizing, will never get things under control, and the end result will be Belgian independence. And it all sprang from a night at the opera too wild even for the Marx Brothers.
August 11, 1841 -- Nantucket Island, Massachusetts
The next few decades in our Grand Tour are long on oratory, beginning here. The occasion is the annual convention of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society. William Lloyd Garrison, famed editor of the abolitionist newspaper The Liberator, is due to speak, and that’s a natural climax. The true highlight, though, comes earlier.
At the convention is a certain “free man of color” who escaped slavery three years ago. Someone heard him speaking to a local anti-slavery group in New Bedford two days ago, and seeing him in attendance here, invited him to speak to the convention about his experiences as a slave. Resisting an attack of stage fright, he delivers a speech that he later confesses he cannot remember.
The attendees will all remember the day they first heard of, and heard from, Frederick Douglass.
His words electrify the audience. Garrison, inspired by the example, follows up with what is probably the best speech of his life. The Society urges Douglass to become a public advocate on their behalf, and despite the publicity that exposes him to recapture as a fugitive slave, he agrees. It is the start of the career of one of history’s most remarkable Americans, a redoubtable advocate for liberty and equality.
It was a speech that deserved to survive the years. Now, it can.
June 19, 1846 -- Hoboken, New Jersey
Two bands of men are converging on the Elysian Field in Hoboken today, to play an old game under new rules. The lawgiver in question is Alexander Cartwright, heading the New York Knickerbocker club, named after his old volunteer firefighting company. He codified some new rules to a popular game variously known as "town ball" and "base ball," and the Knickerbockers have played some intra-squad games under those rules. Today they're facing the New York Nine, an offshoot of their club, in what history will record as the first true game of baseball.
The game's still a rough draft, but it's taking familiar shape. The bases are set ninety feet apart. Perpendicular lines separate fair territory from foul ground, which allows the teams to limit the number of fielders to a manageable nine. You no longer can put a runner out by hitting him with the baseball, which the players are sure to like. One unfamiliar rule is that scoring twenty-one runs wins the game, which ends up acting as a mercy rule when the Nine thrash the Knickerbockers, 23-1 in four innings. To enhance your enjoyment, watch Cartwright, acting as umpire, and keep your ears open. Listen for the player whose cursing earns him the first fine in baseball history: six cents.
Abner Doubleday is nowhere to be found -- but you'll see him eventually.
August 21, 1858 -- Washington Square, Ottawa, Illinois
The crowd at Washington Square will reach ten thousand, so arrive early, but with a good hat or a parasol. It's hot today, and even after your long wait, the main event -- the first Lincoln-Douglas debate -- will last a good three hours.
The Senate race between Stephen Douglas and Abraham Lincoln encapsulated the slavery debate rising to a boil in American politics. Plenty of reporters will be taking down transcripts, for later slanting by their papers: they'll clean up transcripts for their preferred candidate, leaving the other's rough and unimproved. You can record exactly what each man says for posterity, as well as capturing Lincoln's speaking voice. Be prepared, though: Lincoln had a twangy, high-pitched voice that grated on anyone who thought himself sophisticated back then. Lincoln didn't score cheap stylistic points through mellifluous oratory: he scored them by being a foot taller than his five-four adversary.
It's a far cry from today's debates. Douglas opens by speaking for one hour, Lincoln answers for ninety minutes, and Douglas ends with a half-hour rebuttal. Imagine a major political debate today under that format, having to fill three hours with substance. Once you do, you'll have heightened respect for both men, diametrically opposed as they are.
June 30, 1860 -- Museum Library, Oxford University, England
Another debate, this the famous one between Thomas Huxley and Bishop Samuel Wilberforce over Charles Darwin's Origin of the Species, published seven months before. And this was originally meant to go on the list of events you shouldn't visit.
Why? Because it wasn't conceived as an evolution debate. It was originally a lecture by a Professor Draper on Darwinian theory's application to intellectual development and social progress, a tedious slog then or now. Only when Draper finished, and several other speakers put their oars in, did Bishop Wilberforce rise and deliver himself of a thunderous half-hour long attack on Origin of the Species, evolution, and defender of evolutionary theory Thomas Huxley, who was also in attendance. Wilberforce famously asked Huxley whether he was a monkey on his grandmother's or grandfather's side. Huxley made sharp replies in a similar spirit, but neither man was yet an accomplished orator who could carry the room. Soon other attendees were entering the dispute, including the captain of the Beagle -- and he was against Darwin! This went on for four hours, shedding overwhelmingly more heat than light. If the Lincoln-Douglas debates were chess, this was more like professional wrestling.
And which would most people rather watch? So go. Enjoy yourself.
April 12, 1861 -- Mount Pleasant, South Carolina
It's the wee hours of the morning in this small community two miles east of Charleston. Avoiding the city puts you twice as close to today's center of attention: Fort Sumter. Try to make out Fort Johnson to your southwest in the deep gloom. At half-past four, it will fire a single shot that detonates above Sumter, signaling the other batteries ringing the harbor to commence bombardment.
The gunnery duel beginning the American Civil War isn't as intense as you'd think. The Southern batteries, low on ammunition, only fired a round every two minutes, and short-handed Sumter fired back from only six of its sixty guns, after waiting until full light at seven that morning. Reactions of the inevitable civilian gawkers may be more exciting. (Strive to deliver a Southern accent: Yankees will never be more unpopular here.)
You'll be out of position to see the Union's first shot in reply, as it's fired from the south and your safe vantage point is north. Even if you can see the shot, you'll have a hard time making out the officer who fired that first shot in defense of the Union. He is Captain Abner Doubleday, who, in a freak of history fifteen years after his death, would be credited with inventing the game of baseball. This is utter baloney -- he may never have even seen a baseball game -- so you are witness to his true claim to fame today.
If you can spot it from your angle. Good luck.
November 19, 1863 -- Gettysburg, Pennsylvania
This was also originally on my list of historical events not to visit. Why skip the Gettysburg Address, you ask me in astonishment? A crowd of fifteen thousand crammed all together, denying you a good vantage point. Having first to endure a two-hour oration by Edward Everett, in a style that to 21st-century listeners would be so purple of prose as to bleed into the ultraviolet. After all that, about two minutes of Lincoln's own suspect speaking voice: the Gettysburg Address almost certainly reads better than it sounded.
But there are historical ambiguities to resolve. Was the address greeted with long and sustained applause, as the Republican-friendly New York Times asserted? (Yes, that was a very long time ago.) Or as others attest, was the applause scattered and weak, or nonexistent? If so, was it from disappointment, or from thinking clapping too vulgar a response to such profound words? And what exactly were the words? There are several extant versions, from press reports and Lincoln's notes. You'll be able to record precisely what was said.
But ultimately, it's on the list so you can finally get a good look at Abner Doubleday. He's right there on the platform, now a major general. He still hasn't invented baseball, though.
April 10, 1896 -- Marathon to Athens, Greece
You’ve seen the Olympics before, specifically over 2600 years before. You may have seen someone run from Marathon to Athens before, or perhaps you debunked that legend. Today, the two concepts get combined. The first modern Olympic Games are ending with this, the first competitive marathon ever run.
Reviving an ancient tradition to foster amateur athletics and friendly international competition was itself a big effort, but one that may have felt dwarfed by the daunting challenge its signature event posed. Only seventeen runners, all but four native Greeks, dared to tackle a race that had legendarily killed its originator. Seven dropped out before the end, not counting the man who rode in a car part of the way and was briefly thought to have finished third!
You can watch the event where it begins, at Marathon itself, or anywhere else along the route to Athens. One excellent vantage point is a taverna in the village of Pikermi. One of the runners will stop there briefly, ask about the runners ahead of him, and down a glass of wine (or possibly cognac: pay close attention) before hitting the road again. That fortified runner is Spyridon Louis (his name has several variant spellings: I like this one), and he’s going to overhaul the leaders and win the marathon.
You won’t be able to watch him cross the finish line in the Panathenaic Stadium, since it will be full with 80,000 cheering Greeks and a few foreigners. Maybe you can squeeze in just outside to watch him pass, then hear the roar that goes up as two princes of Greece join him for his victory lap. His time of 2:58:50, for a race a mile-plus short of its modern length, may not impress you, but it’s not like anyone knew how to train for this distance yet.
Spyridon is the giant, the national hero, on whose shoulders all of today’s incredibly swift and durable runners stand.
August 14, 1901 -- Fairfield, Connecticut
Watching the Wright Brothers make their historic flights on Kill Devil Hill in North Carolina would be an obvious choice, but here is something more speculative and intriguing. Gustave Whitehead, a German emigré, is one of several claimants to have made a successful powered flight before Orville and Wilbur. One such claimed attempt in Pittsburgh in 1899 led to him colliding with a building. Today's flight will be, allegedly, much more successful.
Get to the test grounds very early, well before sunrise, and preferably concealed by some nearby trees. Whitehead performed some unmanned tests in the predawn gloom, waiting until daylight before climbing aboard himself. His piloted flight covered about half a mile at altitudes up to fifty feet, much longer than anything the Wright Brothers accomplished in 1903.
At least, that is what an article four days later in the Bridgeport Sunday Herald would claim. (It named two other witnesses, neither of whom is you, which is why you need to stay concealed.) No photographs of Whitehead's machine in flight exist, so bring your camera. You may be able to upend the known history of the invention of flight -- or to help dismiss one of the pretenders to the Wrights' primacy. Of course, he claimed three more successful flights before the Wrights, so you might have to visit those times as well to disqualify him entirely. It may be simpler for you if he did it here.
June 30, 1908 -- near Vanavara, Siberia
You should arrive outside this small Russian trading post around 7 a.m. local time. No need to go into town or engage the few locals. Just find somewhere with a good view across the taiga to the north, toward the distant Podkamennaya Tunguska River. Any exposed skin should be well-slathered, both with mosquito repellent and with a little something to prevent flash burns. Because a heat wave is coming, and its name is the Tunguska Impact.
At a quarter after seven, a bright blue streak will cut through the sky. About forty miles distant from you, this body, either a meteor or a cometary fragment, will detonate five miles above the Earth. The force of the explosion will be about a thousand times that of the Hiroshima bomb, complete with heat and blast effects, but without that pesky radiation. It will flatten eighty million trees for miles around, and stands fair to knock you on your back. You're not in mortal peril -- amazingly, this blast may have killed nobody -- but it's an awesome event all the same.
Should you manage to stay upright, you might try the same experiment Enrico Fermi did at the Trinity A-bomb test. Drop some scraps of paper from a certain height, and see how far the blast wave blows them after they leave your hand. I don't have the formula handy for calculating blast force thusly, but if nothing else, you can go back and ask Enrico yourself.
April 11, 1912 -- Roche's Point Lighthouse, Queenstown, Ireland
It's just past eleven on this cloudy day, and you can already see the distant ship cruising toward the harbor at Queenstown (renamed Cobh when Ireland became independent). It will be anchoring off Roche's Point, right by you, because as expansive as the harbor is, it cannot accommodate the largest ship in the world. So for the next two hours, on this rocky green projection of land, you will have a good look at RMS Titanic, at the last landfall she will ever make.
She's picking up 123 passengers, conveyed to her on two tenders from the inner harbor. Seventy-nine of them will die in the North Atlantic, a dire percentage even on this voyage. Eight passengers will disembark, along with one crewman. He's John Coffey, a fireman (meaning he tends the ship's boilers), and you likely won't spot him hiding among the offloaded mailbags. Yes, he's deserting, and whatever cause he has for his desertion is going to look mighty petty in three and a half days.
Make sure to have a good camera along. Titanic memorabilia is still insanely valuable today: imagine what the only existing color film of the ship could bring you. Yes, you could be doing this with the Colossus of Rhodes or Hamlet at the Globe, but it just seems to fit better with the grand obsession this ship spawned.
June 28, 1914 -- corner of Appel Quay and Franz Joseph Street, Sarajevo
It's about eleven in the morning, but you could stand an early lunch. Go into Moritz Schiller's food store at the northeast corner of the intersection, across Appel Quay from the Miljacka River. Buy something light and portable, and go back outside into the milling crowd. There was something of a parade here just a while back: you can see flags hanging from houses and other buildings on Appel Quay, and some people are still loitering around. Give the young man holding a sandwich and talking to a friend a wide berth.
Soon a pair of well-appointed automobiles will pass by, turning onto Franz Joseph Street. The second will stop abruptly, amid shouting on board that they've gone the wrong way. It will back up, stopping in front of Schiller's store. Before it can get moving again, the teenager with the sandwich will stride forward, pull a gun, and fire two shots (so soft you might not even hear them) at the middle-aged couple in the back seat. As the car finally speeds away across the Latin Bridge, the crowd will mob and subdue the man before he can turn the gun on himself. (He also swallows a cyanide capsule, but the batch is a dud, and he vomits it up.) Keep out of the scrum, to avoid appearing in historic photographs.
Congratulations. You have witnessed the first shots of the First World War, and the first two of the more than ten million deaths it would claim. Hope it didn't spoil your lunch.
May 21, 1927 -- The Eiffel Tower, Paris
Yes, you can visit the Eiffel Tower in your own time, but it has a couple things now it won't in the 21st century. One is the title of the world's tallest structure, which it'll hold another three years until the Chrysler Building and then the Empire State Building rise past it. Another is the set of huge lights spelling out "CITROËN" (the automobile manufacturer) on three of its sides, making it the largest advertising billboard on Earth.
These aren't the reasons why you're here tonight. Ascend the tower around nine in the evening, find a view toward the northwest (the Seine should cross roughly below your left shoulder), and enjoy the view as you wait. Sometime before ten, you'll spot the little monoplane winging toward you at four thousand feet. Its pilot is exhausted -- he hasn't slept in over two days -- and he's homing in on the Eiffel Tower as a navigational marker. He'll circle you and the Tower before heading off northeast, toward Le Bourget Field.
You might have preferred to see Charles Lindbergh touch down at Le Bourget, completing his historic solo flight across the Atlantic, but there are over a hundred thousand Frenchmen awaiting him there, and the scene is utter bedlam. This way's more dignified -- and God knows your next brush with him won't be as joyful.
March 1, 1932 -- East Amwell, New Jersey
You will want night-vision binoculars and some good camouflage for this outing. With a New Jersey winter just ending, the bare and scanty trees nearby will grant minimal cover, but since your stakeout will begin at eight, a good two hours after sunset, the risk should be modest. Take your position at the southeast of the large, rambling house, with a good view of the east side of the building, and hunker down against the chilly evening drizzle.
Sometime between eight and ten, you'll see someone approach the house carrying a makeshift ladder, possibly assembling it from sections. He'll lay it against the east wall, climb to a second-floor window, enter, and emerge a moment later carrying a bundle. That bundle is 20-month-old Charles Lindbergh, Junior.
Get a good look at the culprit with your IR binocs. You memorized the face of Bruno Richard Hauptmann before coming here, and now you can confirm whether he was indeed the kidnapper. When the ladder breaks during the descent, you'll have a chance to clear up another point in the infamous case. Mark whether the child falls to his death then, rather than having his skull bashed in later.
Do not try to apprehend Hauptmann, or whoever, yourself. You could inadvertently cause Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait to have a far different ending. (Look it up.)
1938 – Broadway and 48th Street, Manhattan, New York
This entry begins a swing through New York City, so far neglected on the list. Annoyingly, I cannot provide an exact date for something that happened less than a century ago, but some legendary events can bear a hint of mystery.
The Cotton Club was a famous nightspot in New York, featuring music and dance by famed black performers from Duke Ellington to Cab Calloway to Lena Horne. (This Broadway location is their second. The earlier one in Harlem got shut down.) Their clientele had been segregated for years, but that’s fortunately past in 1938. The lineup I listed would be enough to draw many time-travelers, but one night, there was much more.
The Nicholas Brothers, Fayard and Harold, were a dancing duo who had performed at the Cotton Club since 1931. They melded elegance with astonishing athleticism, and if you’ve seen online videos taken from their movie appearances, you know “astonishing” is almost an understatement. On the night in question, they faced challengers: the Berry Brothers, Ananias, James and Warren, whose dancing was considered more athletic, if such a thing can be conceived. The result was what our era would call a dance-off. This is like calling the Thrilla in Manila a tiff.
We are told history does not record who won the contest. History, in this case, is an idiot. It’s obvious who won the dance-off: the audience. If you can track down the date, that can be you.
Early June 1938 -- 174 Windsor Place, Brooklyn, New York
Don't be discouraged by how unprepossessing the candy store at this address appears. Go inside, and browse the magazine racks. There should still be copies of Action Comics #1, dated June 1938, available. You'll know it by the strange man on the cover, wearing tights and a cape and lifting a car over his head. Pick up the most pristine copy you see: it'll be worth over a million dollars back home, and condition counts. While you're at it, grab a couple pulp science-fiction magazines, making sure Astounding Science Fiction is one of them. (It'll have Mars on the cover.)
Once the checkout counter is clear of customers, walk over with your purchases and strike up a conversation with the clerk. This teenaged lad looks like he might be a high school senior, but really he's just finished his junior year at Columbia University. His name is Isaac Asimov, and he reads science fiction too. If he asks your opinion of the ongoing Jack Williamson serial in Astounding, don't panic: you brushed up on The Legion of Time before coming here. If you're lucky, he'll admit that he'd like to write science fiction himself. Mildly encourage him in this: he's scant days away from completing the first story he'd ever submit to the pulps, and beginning his remarkable writing career. Pay cheerfully for your magazines, and move along: there's someone waiting behind you.
October 3, 1951 -- The Polo Grounds, upper Manhattan, New York
This may have you scratching your head. After taking pains to warn you away from recent historical events covered by ever more omniscient media, I'm directing you here? This is maybe the most famous baseball game in history: the final game of the Giants-Dodgers playoff, ending with "The Shot Heard 'Round The World," Bobby's Thomson's pennant-winning home run. Never mind getting caught on newsreel film in crowd shots: the place will be packed for such an important game! Who will get bumped out of seeing this game because you bought a ticket, thus changing his life's history forever?
Nobody. Amazingly, attendance at the game was announced as less than thirty-five thousand people, twenty thousand short of capacity. You will have no trouble buying a ticket in a nice secluded section of the stands -- but going with a glove and trying to catch Thomson's homer is out of the question. Try instead to get a good view of the Giants' clubhouse past center field, where a coach with a telescope is stealing the Dodgers' signs, or of the New York bullpen in deep left, where they relay those signs to Giants batters.
For Dodgers fans in my readership who don't care to witness this highway robbery, feel free to substitute April 15, 1947 at Ebbets Field, the day Jackie Robinson broke baseball's color line. There will be five thousand empty seats available. Be prepared for an anticlimax, though: Robinson went 0 for 3 that day.
May 6, 1954 – Iffley Road Track, Oxford University, England
Twelve hundred spectators are on hand for the track meet between Oxford University and the Amateur Athletic Association. You, like some others, are dressed heavily for the chill winds and scattered rain squalls that make conditions less than ideal for optimum times. One competitor, though, is aiming for a record time, and not just a personal best. He’s a medical student, close to graduation, and his name is Roger Bannister.
This was an age of firsts, and since you won’t be riding back-seat in Glamorous Glennis or waiting on the peak of Everest to greet Edmund and Tenzing, you’ve come here. Running a mile in under four minutes has been a taunting goal for decades, one that some people honestly believed was physically impossible. The same was thought about conquering Everest and breaking the sound barrier. In the ninth heat of the day, Roger will add another shattered wall to the rubble pile.
Bannister runs to his absolute physical limit: he collapses just past the finish line, and reported briefly going color-blind from sheer exhaustion. The race results will be announced by Roger’s friend Norris McWhirter, who, inspired by the event, would next year co-found The Guinness Book of World Records. You won’t hear the announced time of 3:59.4, as the crowd’s cheers drown out everything past “three,” but you will have seen the bounds of human achievement pushed forward once again.
After this, the prophets of the impossible will have to fall back to sneering at the notion of walking on the Moon.
Back to Top
Back to "Malfunction Junction"
Back to Home Page
|