If you could spend 48 hous in the past where would it be and when?

If I had only one choice I would go to Rome when Julius Caesar brought Cleopatra back with him from Egypt. I would get to at least see two of history's most famous (or infamous, depending on how you look at it) people, and I would love to see the reaction of the Roman aristocracy when they made their entrance. I would want my 48 hours to end before Caesar was murdered though!

My second and third choices would be Ancient Egypt at just about any time during the reign of the pharoahs, and China during the 9th century. After reading The Court of the Lion by Eleanor Cooney I have been wanting to visit the emperor's hot springs!

That's a tough one!

I always said I would have loved to hear the great Shawnee warrior Tecumseh speak. I guess it would be around 1811 or so somewhere in Ohio.

easy for me....I come from a line of stubborn Norman/Scotsmen. Norman/Scot because one of my ancestors was an intimate of William the Conqueror--Robert de Ros (my maiden name is Rose, the eventual Scottish corruption/mutation of the Norman de Ros). He and his progeny apparently moved northward thru England over the years into the Scottish highlands, and by the 13th century, my forebearers had built a castle known as Kilravock in Inverness, Scotland. My 14th century ancestor was Hugh Rose, Baron of Inverness, known colloquially as 'the Black Baron'---he apparently would have been a perfect character (rapine, pillaging, etc) for one of the HF novels we love so (in fact, that is my retirement dream project--to write a good HF novel using my own ancestors).  But I digress.

My 17th century ancestors at Kilravock were apparently quite the diplomats. I would go back to the two nights before Culloden, when the then Baron of Inverness hosted first Bonny Prince Charlie overnight, and then the Duke of Cumberland--on consecutive nights, the two nights before the actual battle. I would be seated above the salt at the dinners those two evenings.  The castle still stands and I have stayed there, but  would love to have been a guest at those dinners, to see the diplomacy of remaining neutral throughout the Jacobean wars....sigh.

I'd love to know what happened - I mean, what really happened - to those 2 princes in the tower. If I go back, does it have to be as a human? If I could be a fly on the wall - OK, an intelligent fly on the wall - I'd stick to the tower. Or maybe I could just be the cleaning lady. Then I'd know who-really-dunnit.

Genie, that is a wonderful answer! I would love to know the answer to that mystery myself!

Whoops! Double post!

What an interesting question!!  I don't have a specific date but I would love to have spent 48 hours in the company of Ms. Jane Austen maybe visiting a friend or relative in the country.

Genie,

Have you read "The Daughter of Time" by Josephine Tey? Interesting book that deals with your question (not the usual suspect).

Since posting the original question I've thought a lot about it. At first I thought I wanted to meet someone famous from the past, but there are so many to choose from I can't make up my mind.  I would want to go back to see my parents as children.  If I went to Buffalo, NY in approx 1933, I could see both my parents.  My dad would be 10 and my mother would be 5 and there would be my grandparents as young adults.

I've also thought about this a lot, too, I would want to be in England during the summer of 1348, during the Black Death. I am fascinated by plagues and have read a lot about that topic, both fiction and non-fiction, and would love to be able to see what really transpired. Of course, i'd also love to have my modern-day antibiotics! But if I had to go back without them on board, I would still do so.

Cheryl

Yes, I have, Les. Thanks! I enjoyed it immensely, though I have many more doubts about Richard than Tey does.

I've always had an affinity for the Revolutionary War period. I'd spend 48 hours with George Washington

I'd want to go back and visit King Henry VIII's court.

This is a hard question-I enjoy reading about many different time periods in the past!  But lately I've been thinking alot of my ancestors (probably because I have a 10 year old daughter who is interested as well).  So I think I'd have to go to early 1900s Sicily to meet my Sicilian family, my great-grandparents, before they came to America and settled. 

Great topic.

There's so much information about genealogy online, including old newspapers and other history, it gives you a better idea about what your ancestors were like. It makes me wonder about certain events. Maybe I wouldn't need 48 hours, but I'd like to see my grandparents' wedding in Lamar Colorado in 1915, or a French-Canadian home in 1642.