Writer's Block: You should have been there

[rebness]

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The French Revolution, 1790s
Absolutely every appalling, terrible thing about it. The march on Versailles, the guillotine, the arrest of Robespierre. Such brilliant, bloody, awful history which changed so much in Europe and the rest of the world.

Gavrilo Princip assassinating Archduke Ferdinand,　28 June 1914
This would make one of those great TV movies where you stop a dramatic event happening　and history gets all messed-up. Could I just stand there and watch Princip shoot? Or would I knock that sandwich out of his hand and give him a smack to the face for all of Europe? Ooh.

The Christmas Truce, Christmas Day, 1914
This is one of the saddest and most poignant events, to me, in history. On Christmas Day, 1914, various troops along the Western Front (British, French and German) called a truce. They sang carols and played football with the same people who had been shooting at them hours before. It makes me tear up, even now, to think of honest, ordinary men caught up in this stupid war showing humanity at such a time.

The bombing of Hiroshima, 6th August 1945
No, no, wait. I don't mean in a gloating way. This is another fantasy where somehow history changes and some people are warned and escape before Enola Gay releases that terrible weapon. And obvs. I don't mean I'd want to be at the epicentre.

The discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb, 1922
Imagine seeing that tomb opened up for the first time in thousands of years. Just imagine it.

Comments

[pandorasblog]

I'm with you on that last one. I've always wanted to be Howard Carter in that moment. (Lord Carnarvon, not so much. The whole dying part was tres ironic and awkward.)

I'm also fascinated by the Christmas Truce. I've read different soldiers' diary accounts of it and just... I don't know many stories that better sum up the contradictions and futility of war waged by politicians safe behind the lines, and paid for by front-line troops.

There was a tri-lingual film about it, which was on over Christmas a couple of years ago - I think it's just called Merry Christmas. Harrowing but very powerful...

[fanged-angel.livejournal.com]

My history geekery went all over the place just now. Epic moments are epic! The discovery of the tomb would have blown my mind away.

[mothergoddamn.livejournal.com]

What about that time I saw a pigeon with no toes?

[jadedscorpion.livejournal.com]

The Christmas Truce--I heard something about that on the radio, and no one I ever talked to have ever heard anything about it. So I didn't imagine it. (Course, I spend all day at work with people who can't believe we've cracked the great mysteries of why the sky is blue or the grass green.....) It's such a haunting story. I don't want to imagine how they felt in the morning when they had to go back to killing each other.

Supposedly my grandpa was nearby when Hiroshima was bombed--he told me it was the most horrifying event of his entire lifetime, just knowing that we not only had such a horrible weapon, we just used it on civilians, and knowing that a horrific amount of people just suddenly died in agony. Then they were all expected to go on like nothing happened.