Which Historical Figures Would You Have Liked to Have Known...

[Snapdragon]

...and why?

This is something I've thought of, from time to time, usually after having read something that a person wrote, and sometimes after having read about them in a biography or memoir.

While I may add some others, these come to mind right off hand. Note that I would have needed a translator or to have learned their language...but based on what I know, these people would be high on my own list.

Martin Buber, the Jewish humanist philosopher, author of I and Thou, Between Man and Man, and some other books that I value.

German philosphers Martin Heidegger and Friedrich Nietzsche.

French philosophers Jean-Paul Sartre, Gabriel Marcel, Albert Camus, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty.

Ernesto "Che" Guevara, the famous revolutionary.

Vincent Van Gogh, the great painter.

Poets Rainer Maria Rilke, and Kenneth Patchen.

Sigmund Freud.

Hermann Hesse, the author of many novels that have meant a good deal to me in my life.

Some of the hippies and beats, like Ginsberg, Leary, and Watts.

I'll stop, in order to keep from going on and on. In all cases, I would want to ask them about their own processes of questioning and creativity, their value systems, and major life experiences. If possible, I'd search for some insight into their respective genius, whatever it was that "sparked" their contribution to the world.

My list is relatively long because I've lived longer than most people at this board. Also, it's because I read a lot.

How about you?

[Philosophia]

*moving from JT to History forum*

[john.a]

I would have liked to meet any peasant from the 5th to 9th century who spoke a Romance language. Preferable a male and female couple from several different regions across the empire. It would make my research a lot easier.

[la tortuga]

Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, because I love the things they left behind in the form of outstanding American literature. I honestly think that reading Walden, when I was ready to do so, changed my life. Otherwise, I really don't know what type of a person I would be right now.

James Hutton, who changed geology forever out on Siccar Point. Just to take a walk with him in that area and hear his commentary and what exactly made him link up uniformitarian theory. More importantly, though, to tell him what it did for the world of rock doctorin' in general.

Norman L. Bowen, because his Bowen's reaction series is a fantastic and cool thing that seems so simple now but was probably incredibly difficult to piece together in his day. That, and probably get a few pointers about petrology from the man, himself.

... and Sir Isaac Newton to kick him in the shin for his calculus theorems, hug him for his physics laws, and finally answer that age-old question: "Is that apple story really true?"

I have SO many others, but these are just the people who have been on my mind lately. I will most likely come back and edit this tomorrow or maybe look back a year from now and chuckle at the gargantuan proportions of my nerd.

[Nuadu]

My grandfather Colonel James Ellis of the Irish Volunteer Army. He played a major role in regaining the measure of Irish Sovereignty we have today from Britain but he died before I was born.

I idealise his charactor but from history books and family stories he was either the man who organised rebellions and shot british landlords in their homes or he was the man who took in every stray dog he met and worked in a TB hospice taking care of the terminally Ill. I'll have to wait until I die and move on to the otherworld to find the truth. They say never meet your hero's but Im looking forward to having that man at my shoulder when Im meeting my gods on an equal footing for the first time. The gods will have to look up to see me eye to eye I'll be that swollen with pride.

[brymble]

John Lennon
Benjamin Franklin
Rosaleen Norton
John Keats

and the guy who invented the twist tie

among others.

[Infinite Grey]

No one really.

I put up idealized images of my heroes which are unrealistic -- my little ray of irrationality -- I would not want my romanticized impressions to be shattered by who they really are. :smileroll


On the other hand... my insatiable curiosity actually demands I smash those fantasies with the hammer of reality... thus the battle continues.

[brymble]

No one really.

I put up idealized images of my heroes which are unrealistic -- my little ray of irrationality -- I would not want my romanticized impressions to be shattered by who they really are. :smileroll


On the other hand... my insatiable curiosity actually demands I smash those fantasies with the hammer of reality... thus the battle continues.

I can tell you're just dying to know about the guy who invented the twist tie, too, aren't you?

[Brightshores]

Eleanor of Aquitaine. Katharine of Aragon. Jesus. Buddha. Muhammad and his wife Khadija. Thomas Jefferson. Jane Austen. King Conn of a Hundred Battles (assuming he existed). Mary Wollstonecraft. William the Conqueror. Mozart. Beethoven. Hildegard of Bingen. Pythagoras. I could go on...

[Gypsyballad]

John Lennon
Edgar Allen Poe
Benjamin Franklin
Abraham Lincoln
John F. Kennedy

[Valnorran]

My own ancestors - my father (died when I was two. I don't remember him at all), my great-great grandmother, to clear up a story in family lore, Hans and Melchior von Riken, a pair of crusader era knights I'm related to.

My favorite periods of American history are the Old West and the Civil War, so Jim Bowie, Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, Bill Tillman, Frank Hamer, Nathan Bedford Forrest and John Moseby (to whom I'm distantly related).

European history (assuming there'd be an interpreter when necessary) would be Johannes Liechtenauer and Fiori dei Liberi, Rob Roy MacGregor. There's a Viking who supposedly took on eight opponents at once and won, but for the life of me I can't remember his name. I'd still like to knock back a tankard or two with that guy, though, as well as with that lone Viking who held off the English at Stamford Bridge.

[watersprite]

Napoleon, so I could understand all the little pricks around here.

[Philosophia]

Way too many to name. From the top of my head:

Albert Einstein
Thomas Paine
Hypatia
Sylvia Plath
Albert Camus
Rene Descartes
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Emily Dickinson
Virginia Woolf
Agatha Christie
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Galileo
Marie Curie
Leonardo Da Vinci
Vincent Van Gogh

And I haven't included many of the great philosophers, scientists, royalty, artists, authors, etc. that I consider remarkable either.

[Corvis Canis Latrans]

Leon Battista Alberti (I want to know if he was a spy as well as an architect and writer, given that he was a cryptographer as well.)

Francesco I de' Medici

Federico da Montefeltro and Sigismondo Malatesta (both of whom history and surviving documents have made the "Spy versus spy" archetypes of the Renaissance).

Marsilio Ficino

Giorgio Vasari

Lodovico Lazarelli

Saint Francis of Assisi

Isabella d'Este

Goivanna da Piacenza (rather liberal Abbess of the Nunnery of St. Paul in Parma)

Giulio Camillo (Creator of Renaissance Memory Theater)

Non Renaissance figures:

William Blake

Pamela Coleman Smith

A.E. Waite

Lady Frieda Harris

Aleister Crowley

Court de Gebelin

(I collect tarot decks, so, naturally....)

And I'll stop here. I could also go on forever.....:p

[Cunae]

Christ, Crazy Horse, Red Cloud, Abraham Lincoln, Jim Croce, Eve

[Gypsyballad]

I would also like to add to my list:

Aleister Crowley
Israel Regardie
S.L. Mathers

[Incendia]

Not really a historical figure, but Scott Cunningham. It was through his books that I was introduced to Paganism. Him...and maybe Gandhi.

[elessar]

Imhotep, Da Vinci, Cleopatra, Ulisses

[BryonMorrigan]

Alexander the (MFin') Great!

I could spend all day talking military strategy with him.

[Infinite Grey]

Caesar Flavius Valerius Aurelius Constantinus Augustus: So I could kick him in the balls.

[Chaos Hawk]

John Howland. He is my ancestor and he came over to America on the Mayflower. I would love to meet him.

[Terra Mater]

Our founding fathers so I could find out just how badly we have screwed up their ideas of what the country should have been and exactly what they meant by certain things they wrote which we spend too much time arguing about.:thumbsup:

[Rainowl]

Vincent Van Gogh, I would like to have watched him paint and learn some things from him.

Akhenaten and Nefertiti, why did they revise the Egyptian religion?

Leonardo da Vinci, just a few glimpses of his wealth of knowledge.

Geronimo, what was his life like?

Jim Bridger and Daniel Boone, what was it like to be the first non-Natives exploring the American West?

[BryonMorrigan]

caesar flavius valerius aurelius constantinus augustus: So i could kick him in the balls.


win!

[Louisvillian]

Caesar Flavius Valerius Aurelius Constantinus Augustus: So I could kick him in the balls.
Why? Constantine was a great proponent of religious tolerance and mutual respect of the religions in the Roman Empire. He may have been a Christian in private, and given some degree of homage to the Church; but his Edit of Milan made the religions of the Empire equal to one another, and permitted free and open exercise of any of them.

But it was Theodosius, not Constantine, who instated Christianity as the state religion of the Roman Empire and passed laws to purge those who differed from the Roman state.
If anything, I'd like to meet Constantine and congratulate on him. And lament on the failures of his successors to uphold his noble goals of Roman nationhood.

[yarrow_elfglow]

Edgar Allen Poe
Vlad the Impaler
Willian Shakespeare
Jack The Ripper
Elizabeth Bathory

[Infinite Grey]

Why? Constantine was a great proponent of religious tolerance and mutual respect of the religions in the Roman Empire. He may have been a Christian in private, and given some degree of homage to the Church; but his Edit of Milan made the religions of the Empire equal to one another, and permitted free and open exercise of any of them.

But it was Theodosius, not Constantine, who instated Christianity as the state religion of the Roman Empire and passed laws to purge those who differed from the Roman state.
If anything, I'd like to meet Constantine and congratulate on him. And lament on the failures of his successors to uphold his noble goals of Roman nationhood.

I know - but it was Constantine that ultimately paved the way for Theodosius (another I would like to kick in the balls... with steel studded punk/road warrior style boots).

[Æon Flux]

Queen Christina of Sweden (Born in 1626, Died in 1689)

She was the only heir to the throne, and thus educated as a boy would have been, she initiated the end of the Thirty Years War, she was rumored to be a lesbian, she launched a "Court Of Learning"... she abdicated from the throne in 1654 and left for Rome a few days later disguised as a man. She conspired to make herself Queen Of Naples but was betrayed, and later Queen Of Poland, which also failed. She died in 1689, aged 63 and was buried in St. Peter's, an unusual honor for a woman.

Christina's "abnormal" interest (for her time) in pursuits normally reserved for males, occasional dressing in male attire, and persistent stories about her personal relationships, have led to many disagreements among historians as to the nature of her sexuality. In 1965, her body was exhumed for testing, to see if she had signs of hermaphroditism or intersexuality, but the results were inconclusive.

She was born a protestant, converted to Roman-Catholicism and was frequently accused of being an Atheist.

Wickedly cool woman. Who wouldn't want to meet her?

[Jethro Tull]

John Lennon

[Levity]

Napoleon, so I could understand all the little pricks around here.

fist off aside from his nickname le generalle pettite- the little general there is no evidence to suggest he was short, it infact translate as ''the skinny general'', and say what you want about him he turned that imporvershid factionalized blood bath called france into the predominate power in europe singlehandledly. a promeathean task at the very least.

by the way favorite historical figure: napolean

[Glowingsun]

Princess Diana

Queen Elizabeth

Shirley Temple

Dian Fossey

Mary Quant

Mary Cassatt

[Kaliayev]

Cesare Borgia, just to see the look on the face of his treacherous condottieri, Vitellozzo Vitelli and Oliverotto da Fermo, once they realised he had outwitted them.

Thucydides, so I could get him to dictate the conclusion of his Histories to me, and make millions of Classical scholars cry.

Oda Nobunaga, Alexander the Great and Genghis Khan, to see what motivated them so.

JFK, to advise him to take the car with a roof, when in Dallas.

[electricpeppers]

Alexander the Great

William Shakespeare

Queen Victoria

Hitler (Just for historical curiousity.)

Jane Austen

[KC Destroyer of Worlds]

General Grant
Abraham Lincoln
Thomas Paine
Benjamin Franklin
Emperor Constantine (and his mom)
Ah Men Ho Tep (sp?)
Jim Croce
Louis L'Amour
Jedediah Smith
Forrest Grant

There are more I just can't think of them

[rook]

Some of my country's Found Fathers - folks like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin, among others... But I also think it would be interesting to meet more regular, everyday type folks from that time period.

My ancestory is partially British - Scots-Irish, English, and Welsh (all that from my moms side - from my biological father, more English blood along with some Hispanic). And I think it'd be very, very cool to go back and meet some of my ancestors.

Beyond that (in no particular order, as I'm gunna list these just off the top of my head). . . .

Princess Di

Beethoven

Mozart

Oscar Wilde

Martin Luther King Jr

Vincent Van Gogh

Pablo Picasso

John Lennon

Susan B. Anthony

Harriet Tubman

Amelia Earhart

Erik The Red

Thomas Paine

Queen Elizabeth the First

Cleopatra

Georgia O'Keefe

Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Charles Dickens

William and Jacob Grimm

Leonardo Da Vinci

and Janis Joplin :smile:

[QuantumSoul]

Whoever the person that Jesus/Horus was based off of.

Joan Of Ark

Maybe not "historical", but Robert Monroe.

[Tiberias]

Charlemagne, Bernard of Clairvaux, Thomas Aquinas, Francisco Goya, and Ramon Llull.

[thought_on_a_wind]

...and why?

This is something I've thought of, from time to time, usually after having read something that a person wrote, and sometimes after having read about them in a biography or memoir.

While I may add some others, these come to mind right off hand. Note that I would have needed a translator or to have learned their language...but based on what I know, these people would be high on my own list.

Martin Buber, the Jewish humanist philosopher, author of I and Thou, Between Man and Man, and some other books that I value.

German philosphers Martin Heidegger and Friedrich Nietzsche.

French philosophers Jean-Paul Sartre, Gabriel Marcel, Albert Camus, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty.

Ernesto "Che" Guevara, the famous revolutionary.

Vincent Van Gogh, the great painter.

Poets Rainer Maria Rilke, and Kenneth Patchen.

Sigmund Freud.

Hermann Hesse, the author of many novels that have meant a good deal to me in my life.

Some of the hippies and beats, like Ginsberg, Leary, and Watts.

I'll stop, in order to keep from going on and on. In all cases, I would want to ask them about their own processes of questioning and creativity, their value systems, and major life experiences. If possible, I'd search for some insight into their respective genius, whatever it was that "sparked" their contribution to the world.

My list is relatively long because I've lived longer than most people at this board. Also, it's because I read a lot.

How about you?
Donald of the isles~ matters of family heritage

Tesla~ come on, anyone who can make Edison seem like a dult and actually beat him at his own game while inventing wireless battery operated remote control boats in the late 1800's, not to mention come up with an amazing thing of it's own in the Tesla Coil, is someone I'd love to sit down with and chat.

Neitchze~ not sure I could tell you exactly why aside from I'd love to discuss his work and put a physical voice to his publications

Einstein~ umm... Do I need to explain the reason I'd want to talk to the progenitor to the modern worlds scientific deliverance?

Edgar Allan Poe comes to mind, although I'd have liked to speak with him before he married his cousin

Napoleon~ I just need to satiate my curiosity for Western histories most extreme case of short man syndrome

Miyamoto Musashiden~ I buy his Book of Five Rings all the time, I stash copies everywhere I've been, and am going to be... anyone who can learn a trade of their own accord, and decimate the premier samurai with nothing more than a whittled oar needs to be spoken with if an audience could be afforded to such a hermit.

Sun Tzu~ simply because of his work The Art of War (although I will admit there is debate that he is just a collection of strategists under the guise of one name)

Frank Baum~ I'd need to pick his brain because there's infinitely more to the World of Oz than he might portend

Teddy Roosevelt~ My ancestor on my Mom's side, because I feel we'd have a Bully good time

Teddy Roosevelt Jr.~ I'd like his first hand accounts of WW2

FDR~ same reason's as the rest of the Roosevelts

I heard of a Yogi that supposedly holed himself up in a cave somewhere in the Himilayas and mastered his bodily control to such an extreme degree that he was able to meld with the walls of his cave, reportedly one can go into said cave and place their hand into a hole that exactly conforms to a humans hand... I do believe if the person did/does exist I would certainly like to meet them.

I'd like to meet Shakespere so I could slap him

I'd also like to consult with Aristotle and Socrates, freely with Aristotle (although I'd be cautious to not visit him at the bath house) and hesitantly with Socrates since his method can at times be extremely demeaning and arrogant

Of course I'd wish to sit down with the Genius that was Darwin and Da'Vinci
for all sorts of reasons I'm sure anyone could understand however...

Robert the Bruce comes to mind as my clan gained the title "Right Arm of Scotland" (or some variant) due to our role in things, and if one meets Robert the Bruce, and acknowledges the patriotic amount of contributions ones ancestors had in preserving the Brave Heart (rumor of the relic be true or not), of course one would have to go back a little further and meet William Wallace who was also assisted by Clan Donald.

When it comes down to it, what I'd really like to do is freeze time, be able to start from the very beginning and come to present day and analyze/study, catalogue and absorb the knowledge and experiences of most if not all historic characters (good or bad) save most if not all figures of Roman importance, although Caligula might be a tad interesting in his own right.

[Allytria]

Edgar Allen Poe
John Dee
Aleister Crowley
HP Lovecraft
King Ashurbanipal
Imhotep
Jean Francois Champollion
Georges Contenau
Georges Dumezil

[Winter_Witch]

Please DON'T take this the wrong way, but I would LOVE to meet Jack the Ripper, so I could finally know who it is!!!

With that said, I'd also like to meet and have intellectual conversations with Nietzsche, Einstein, Sir Isaac Newton, Galileo, Alexander the Great, and some others that I can't think of right now.

[BeautyQueen]

hmmm.. I would like to meet Adolf Hitler. I think his mind is so interesting and I really want to ask some controversial questions that have been left unanswered by our historians.. I also would like to know why he wanted to annihilate the Jews..

[Cloaked Raven]

Queen Victoria. She was an amazing queen in my opinion.

[WitchJezebel]

So many people I'd love to meet:

Vincent Van Gogh
Hieronymous Bosch
Toulouse Lautrec
Beethoven
Mozart
Queen Elizabeth I
Mary Queen of Scots
Cleopatra
Octavius Augustus Ceasar
Bonnie & Clyde
Henry Hudson
Dante Alighieri
Vlad the Impaler
William Wallace


I know there's more but my brain stopped working.

[Toriach]

Marcus Aurelius. The fact that he had so much power and it did not seem to render him totally corrupt.