If you could go back in time 500 years, what single item would you take with you?
Imagine the year 1518, and imagine you as part of some fantastical storyline have to get zapped back there, what single item would you take with you?
For my UK readers, you would be going back to the earlier part of King Henry VIII reign, one of the most famous rulers in our history. But to answer this question we need to understand a bit more what life was like then.
Its said that society and technology has changed more in the last 100 years than it had in the preceding 1000, and you could take an average person from 1918 and send them back to 1818 and they would probably be ok, whereas sending us back 100 years would lead to us being incapable, or sending the 1918 denizen to our time would be equally as difficult for them. Think about massive changes in the last 100 years, the normalization of high speed transportation and flight (and space flight), the social revolutions, equality, breaking down of class divides, modern medicines and vaccines, improvements in food production and food quality, and the changes in human labour connected to them. Concepts like computing, the internet, AI, blockchain are coming faster and faster, our pace of change is accelerating.
500 years ago, most people were subsistence farmers (producing food for their own bellies) and any small mounts left could be sold, a very few people had enough money/power to not worry about food production/security.
What single item would I take back
For me, it would be the telescope.
Not so new and fangled that it would be mistaken for witchcraft and have me burned at the stake, but also about 100 years before its actual discovery. It would give me the power and influence I would need to survive in such a hard time, because I could provide real benefits to generals in armies, or see which ships were on the horizon. But it would also allow me to show people that the universe is bigger than can be seen with the naked eye, and there is more to creation than the Church of the time understands.
Well if the criteria is a single item then a fully equipped & crewed nuclear powered aircraft carrier would be my choice!
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Well, 1000 sailors isnt exactly one item, but good thinking anyway :)
But if it has to be an item I can carry it is as much purple cloth or cloth dye as I can carry. Worth much more than its weight in gold. Also in my head the instructions how to make dynamite and other modern explosives.
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Very historically accurate, nice call
I had actually given some prior thought to this issue because the the show Outlander. One of the characters goes back to 1743 Scotland from the 1960s with the intention of changing the outcome of the Battle of Culloden. However she takes no useful items or knowledge to accomplish this goal. I looked into it and dynamite can be made with a few chemical items that were easily obtainable in the 1700s (or 1500s) and their use revolutionised warfare.
I remember the show, it was good
Well thats a pretty tough question, but most of us might be saying, Internet xD
It would be quite hard to take the whole internet back with you! But if you could, how would you explain it to the people of that time? Do you think they would see it as useful?
Probably a simple lighter would be the most useful item IMO
Yeah, my blasted telescope wont keep me warm on a cold night!
I would probably take spices with me annd pretend that I am a trader from far away. It would make me rich immediately and people wouldn't kill me because I am a foreigner, due to the fact that traders were guarded by the crown. Plus spices are light and I could carry a lot of them.
New technology probably would lead to decapitation.
Foreigners generally had no rights that time around, so it would be quite tough to survive.
Yes I like your thinking, we certainly would seem like foreigners and I expect we would struggle with language too.
Exactly, that's why I would pretend to be a trader. Maybe that would increase my chance to survive.
A lab able to produce Penicillin. I'd be a wizard. If I manage to survive the villagers and their pitchforks, any king in the land would pay me whatever I asked to heal everything from their STDs to their influenza. Minted, I'd be.
Yeah the danger is great, but if you can pull it off you are the Kingmaker!