Time Travel

If you could travel back in time to the past, where would you go and why?? I always wanted to travel back to the 1960's because the music from that time period was fantastic and people were standing up for women's rights and African American rights and I also loved the styles of the '60's, like bell bottoms and the bee hive hairdos..Just seemed like an awesome time period!!! 8-]] There was just so much going on in this era!!

Well last year I went to see the birth of Christ. I got there before Joe and Marry and was lucky to get the last room at the Inn.

I think I will travel back and catch the resurrection of Christ in the spring.

How long am I there? Just a few months...years... or is this new life?

Will I have the money & resources to do the things I want? (I would hate to go back to ancient Egypt in hopes of seeing all the cool stuff, only to end up being one of the slaves building the cool stuff...

That sounds like a set-up for a Doctor Who episode.

Do I still have to be human?

If I could only go back, it would be cool to be an entity that exists aware enough and long enough to observe the creation of the solar system and the planets.

Of course to that entity, a human lifetime would be shorter than a fart from eating a bean burrito.

I think maybe I would not like to visit 1968 with its Vietnam-War body counts and news stories about American soldiers murdering Vietnamese people and My Lai. Some of my older relatives look back fondly at how they demonstrated against the war, especially the riots in Chicago outside the Democratic Party Convention.

Mexican federal troops killed students at a political demonstration in Mexico City. In France riots almost brought the French economy to a standstill. In Czechoslovakia, Russian tanks over threw a revolutionary government. In China, Mao's continuing cultural revolution continued to destroy the Chinese economy. The Arabs and Israelis continued their war of attrition.

Martin Luther King Jr, the civil rights activist, and Robert Kennedy, the candidate for President were assassinated.

The United States elected Richard Nixon to the Presidency. I don't know if Nixon holds the record for corruption, but he must be on the short list.

Of course, in December 1968, astronauts went to the moon for the first time. While orbiting the moon, they took pretty pictures of Earth. Kindah cool.

I think 1968 would be the ideal year to re-visit BECAUSE the times were so tumultuous.

Of course, time travel would be conditional upon the traveller having a "watch and observe" brief only. Don't go changing anything, now. No popping into the hotel kitchen and telling a cop "That guy over there's got a gun and he's gonna shoot that nice Mr Kennedy".

Some years ago I spoke with somebody who claimed to have been at the US Embassy demonstration against the Vietnam War in London that year. It started (he claimed) as a peaceful demonstration, but it was suspected that agents provocateur must have been placed in the crowd. It seemed that the police were just a little too well organised.... too well positioned in a tactical sense. They responded just a little too quickly when the trouble kicked off. As if they were... I dunno... "expecting something to happen", perhaps..?

That's his version of events, anyway.

Your summary of the year left out a couple of the key events. The Tet Offensive in Vietnam wasn't successful in that it won the war, but it was the beginning of the end for the US military in that country. The Pentagon Papers later revealed that Johnson, McNamara, et al, had always known the war couldn't be won, but Tet made it glaringly obvious to the whole world.... except for Richard Nixon, who had won the election on a "Bring The Troops Home" ticket but still stood by the Diem Regime. True, he did withdraw American forces but his policy of "Vietnamisation" of the war cost hundreds of billions of American taxpayers dollars in equipping the ARVN and also led to the bombing of Cambodia. Oh, what a mess it all was.

You mentioned the circumnavigation of the moon that Christmas by Apollo 8, which, after the launch pad fire in Apollo 1 the year before had nearly caused the cancellation of the whole programme, achieved so many mission objectives in one big Hail Mary pass that Kennedy's target date of the end of the decade became possible again.

The "Earthrise" images taken by Jim Lovell were astounding but what must have sent an almost primal shiver down everybody's spine was the recital, on Christmas Eve, of The Creation from the book of Genesis. Magnificent, not just in a theatrical sense, but so deeply meaningful to everybody here.... on the Good Earth.

The crew of Apollo 8 saved 1968.

Well, I would like to thank you for taking all of the fun out of this adventure.



I don't care what anyone says, I'm not going back... not now... not after all the potential fun had been taken away.

chuckle

Awwwww.... So I'm the killjoy today.

Hey, it's OK to go back in time if you want to. If you want to find some fun in history I wish you luck. Send us a postcard from 1350: "Having a great time. The Black Plague's a hoot..!!"

Or how about from 1482: "Medieval Europe is really cool, although I didn't expect the Spanish Inquisition."

Go on.... be creative.

I didn't expect the Spanish Inquisition...

“No one expects the Spanish Inquisition! Our chief weapon is surprise, fear and surprise; two chief weapons, fear, surprise, and ruthless efficiency! Er, among our chief weapons are..."

I agree the 60s would be great to visit for a lot of reasons, but I've also always been fascinated with 19th century urban America. I think it would be particularly interesting to see how people acted differently then...mannerisms, speech, etc. and to put in stark contrast with the way we've evolved (or in some ways perhaps devolved) socially.

Ngô Đình Diệm was assassinated in 1963. Was there another Diem? Or Ngô?

Of course Thiệu was president when Nixon came to power.

The 60's were nice as long as you weren't a grunt in the mud trying not to get killed or a protestor trying not to get your head bashed in.

Nixon, in my opinion, was not a very nice man.