If you could travel back in time to any year in history... only once

[hst43102]

I can't decide. Probably either 1959 or thereabouts to experience the best of British Railways - all the branch lines and interesting steam / early diesel locomotives out and about! Also, I'll have my camera on me so I'll get some cracking good photo/video to show off in the year 2021 (although I'll be 81 by then!)

Or maybe 2010 or so? I'll just take some cash and invest it all into Tesla stock...

 

[DynamicSpirit]

The restricted diet was healthier in some ways than what many people eat now

I can well believe it was healthier than what many people actually eat now. But... healthier than what most people could eat now if only people made a bit of effort...? There's an awful lot more choice of pretty healthy foods in the shops now if you can avoid getting waylaid by all the chocolates and ready-prepared cakes . I believe back then you could only for example buy those fruits and vegetables that were actually in season at that time of year.

 

[Cowley]

There's an IMO splendid novel by Ben Elton -- Time and Time Again -- whose premise is, going back to June 1914 and seeing to it that Franz Ferdinand is not killed in Sarajevo; and immediately thereafter, going and killing Kaiser Wilhelm II. To put things briefly: the course of history thereafter, comes to involve stuff far worse than what actually happened in "our real time-line".

That’s a very good book I must agree @Calthrop .

 

[Calthrop]

In my view, one of a number of such by Elton -- author with a marvellous imagination.

 

[birchesgreen]

I'd go back to 1929 and shoot Hitler.

Probably wouldn't have stopped the Nazis, the corporatist powers behind the scene already would have ensured that. Could very well have ended up with a Nazi regime which knew what it was doing...

Alternatively could have led to a Bolshevik Europe. Good fun eh?

 

[UP13]

For any of you who played Command & Conquer Red Alert in the late 1990s, the premise was that Albert Einstein invented time travel, went back to the 1920s and killed Hitler. The end result was that without a strong Germany, the USSR under Stalin grew really strong unopposed and WWII ended up being a Soviet invasion of Europe.

 

[DarloRich]

For any of you who played Command & Conquer Red Alert in the late 1990s, the premise was that Albert Einstein invented time travel, went back to the 1920s and killed Hitler. The end result was that without a strong Germany, the USSR under Stalin grew really strong unopposed and WWII ended up being a Soviet invasion of Europe.

Probably wouldn't have stopped the Nazis, the corporatist powers behind the scene already would have ensured that. Could very well have ended up with a Nazi regime which knew what it was doing...

Alternatively could have led to a Bolshevik Europe. Good fun eh?

hmmmmmmmmmmmm - I am not sure about that. It is very counter factual/conspiracy. The Russians were incompetent for large periods ( Finland) and vastly supported by western military aid ( look at where their trucks came from, and their boots) while the the nazi mega millitary machine was a myth. They were are horse drawn army in the main.

Anyway, you dont need to kill Hitler, just get the French to invade Germany at any time up to and including the invasion of Poland. Hitler wont survive.

 

[UP13]

Hitler admitted that if the UK and France declared war when he moved into the Rhineland or Alsace-Lorraine (I can't remember which) then he was toast as they were nowhere near ready to fight us. He called our bluff.

How different would history have been if we didn't wait for him to invade Poland before acting...

 

[DarloRich]

How different would history have been if we didn't wait for him to invade Poland before acting...

We didn't really act then!

 

[Bevan Price]

Hitler admitted that if the UK and France declared war when he moved into the Rhineland or Alsace-Lorraine (I can't remember which) then he was toast as they were nowhere near ready to fight us. He called our bluff.

How different would history have been if we didn't wait for him to invade Poland before acting...

I doubt if UK armed forces were sufficiently strong to be effective at that time -- the pacifist factions had left them under strength by the mid 1930s. Not sure about the state of the French armed forces at that time.

However, the real origin of the problems probably stretches back to the Versaiiles Treaty, which imposed crippling financial damage to the German economy with post-WW1 reparations penalties. The German population might have been less susceptible to support for extremism if there had been a stable, viable economy with low unemployment.

 

[DarloRich]

the pacifist factions had left them under strength by the mid 1930s.

Who says? The army was sized for its job: Empire policing. It wasn't sized for a European war. That was the job of the French army which was poorly led by old men without a grasp on modern warfare. BTW The British army that formed the BEF was a highly modern, mechanised and professional army.

 

[ABB125]

However, the real origin of the problems probably stretches back to the Versaiiles Treaty, which imposed crippling financial damage to the German economy with post-WW1 reparations penalties. The German population might have been less susceptible to support for extremism if there had been a stable, viable economy with low unemployment.

Indeed. Based on my the history I was taught at school, the Treaty of Versailles might just have been the biggest mistake of the 20th century.
Obviously some form of "punishment" was necessary, but I think the Treaty went too far; and I believe the French (de Gaulle?) wanted far harsher terms, but the British and especially Americans wouldn't allow it.

 

[Bald Rick]

Obviously some form of "punishment" was necessary, but I think the Treaty went too far; and I believe the French (de Gaulle?) wanted far harsher terms

Marshal Foch; de Gaulle was at the point a long way from the top of the army.

 

[ABB125]

Marshal Foch; de Gaulle was at the point a long way from the top of the army.

So he was! Not sure why his name came into my head...

 

[DarloRich]

Marshal Foch; de Gaulle was at the point a long way from the top of the army.

De Gaulle was irc an infantry company commander in the first world war and was captured

 

[birchesgreen]

The French armed forces (and the country itself) was in a lot of turmoil in the mid-30s. Plus they set so much store on the Maginot Line.

Anyway this is a bit OT of course.

 

[DerekC]

Of course you have to accept that your returning to an earlier time might change the course of history in a significant way. So when you get back to 2021 the world would not be as it is now. And there is the old paradox of accidentally killing your past self - what happens then? You don't exist so you can't go back and kill yourself so you do exist! Time for bed!!

 

[LOL The Irony]

Of course you have to accept that your returning to an earlier time might change the course of history in a significant way. So when you get back to 2021 the world would not be as it is now. And there is the old paradox of accidentally killing your past self - what happens then? You don't exist so you can't go back and kill yourself so you do exist! Time for bed!!

The good old butterfly effect...

 

[Purple Orange]

Nobody fancies seeing the dinosaurs or being present at the birth or crucificition of Jesus?

 

[LSWR Cavalier]

I fancy 1892, the end of the broad gauge, or a few decades earlier to meet the Stephensons and Brunel.

 

[birchesgreen]

Nobody fancies seeing the dinosaurs or being present at the birth or crucificition of Jesus?

I wouldn't mind seeing them but the OP premise is that its a one way trip.

 

[Purple Orange]

I wouldn't mind seeing them but the OP premise is that its a one way trip.

Be resourceful. I’m sure Bear Grills would be fine out there.

 

[UP13]

To be fair going back to the time of Jesus would definitely clear things up on the other thread (same you can't come back to tell the other posters the answer)...

 

[Purple Orange]

To be fair going back to the time of Jesus would definitely clear things up on the other thread (same you can't come back to tell the other posters the answer)...

Just leave a note somewhere.... the five loaves and two fishes made a pretty watery soup and it wasn’t seasoned enough. Do not recommend. 1 star.

 

[nlogax]

Nipping back to Dallas in November 1963 and leaving a note with the word 'duck' in the back of JFK's limo would be near the top of my list.

Culturally I'd choose some time closer to the present day. I was a bit too young to appreciate the year 1984. Wish I could have been in my early teens then to fully get into the music, the films, even the clothes. 1984 struck me as a turning point for culture, music, technology, rail..at the time I was mostly interested in Lego and Terrahawks and much of what I finally discovered after the fact was passing me by at the time.

 

[ChiefPlanner]

I am quite impressed with the young ones on here , mentioning the 1980's and so on - we just lived through it , but made careful observations at the time about the collapse of the DDR etc. Very interesting times.

Personally - torn between a visit to 1930's London for the glory days of the LPTB and the thriving Southern Electric and so on , also for a translatlantic journey to New York and America to see the NY Subway in it's expanding days and the full on American steam railroads , not just the fast passenger journeys , but the whole freight business.

On a modest scale - the GWR from Paddington on the xx55 to South Wales and a tour of the Valleys , and the ex Cambrian lines . Naturally including the Brynamman branch with the hope of seeing some (younger) family relatives ....

 

[JohnMcL7]

I would love to be able to be able to meet my grandaparents when they were young since I was only old enough to really know one of them well but I wouldn't travel back if I couldn't return to this time.

 

[Purple Orange]

If it was not a trip to see the dinosaurs or find out if Mary really did have an immaculate conception, I’d like go back to 1956 to watch the Busby Babes, then later to see the Beatles, watch Best, Law & Charlton, and England win the World Cup. I’d have to recommend the plane doesn’t take off in the snow and encourage Shankley to manage Accrington Stanley. If not 1956, I’d go back to 1988 and get my parents to change their mind about not moving to Boston.

 

[UP13]

Just leave a note somewhere.... the five loaves and two fishes made a pretty watery soup and it wasn’t seasoned enough. Do not recommend. 1 star.

Brilliant!

 

[yorksrob]

If it was not a trip to see the dinosaurs or find out if Mary really did have an immaculate conception, I’d like go back to 1956 to watch the Busby Babes, then later to see the Beatles, watch Best, Law & Charlton, and England win the World Cup. I’d have to recommend the plane doesn’t take off in the snow and encourage Shankley to manage Accrington Stanley. If not 1956, I’d go back to 1988 and get my parents to change their mind about not moving to Boston.

Accrington Stanley ! Who are they ?