The One Period In History 25% Of People Would Travel To If They Could
The idea of time travel has been around, well, for a long time. According to Live Science, an ancient Sanskrit epic poem that was written circa 400 BCE was one of the earliest stories that used the idea of time travel. The poem tells of a king looking for the perfect husband for his daughter, so he traveled through time because sometimes that's just what it takes to find the ideal suitor for your daughter. But the idea of time travel didn't stop with the ancient poets. Centuries later, scientists like Albert Einstein considered the possibility that time is relative and illusionary, per Space.
Though no option for time travel has been proven to actually work as well as Doc Brown's DeLorean, we still like to imagine being immersed in eras untouched by modern technology, times we only know from history classes. Others of us might imagine blasting into the future to see how we incorrigible humans handle our new lives after sentient artificial intelligence beings relinquish us to being their pets.
Because we at Grunge are interested in our readers' fantasy lives, we asked 518 of you: If you could travel back to any of six eras bereft of antibiotics, which would you choose?
Twenty-five percent of responders said they'd head to the Italian Renaissance, and who can blame them? From the 14th-17th centuries, the art was bangin' and the ideas were flowin' as Europeans emerged from the "dark ages" into one of the most culturally rich times in history.
50% of people polled said they'd go to some pretty sketchy eras
Other options we gave pollsters show a lot about where people's heads are, because most of those options connote ideas of lawlessness, violence, torture, and disease. Twenty percent of people said they'd go to the American Wild West, when slinging guns and swilling whiskey were among the favorite pastimes. Not much has changed.
Nearly 15 percent of those polled said they'd go to Pre-European Hawaii, where it's easy to imagine running around free and unencumbered in paradise on earth, but even native Hawaiians had slaves, like most ancient cultures, according to the National Park Service, so no guarantees.
Fourteen percent of our poll takers said they'd go to the black plague era of Medieval England. Plus, we all know what it means to "get medieval." That group is clearly ready to take some chances.
More than 9 percent of people said they'd travel to Shogunate Japan, which spanned from 1192-1867, according to Britannica, who reported there were 250 years of peace and stability at the end before those rabble-rousers, the samurai, came onto the scene and eventually helped lead to the downfall of the era.
The Aztec Empire would be the destination of 7 percent of those polled. Admittedly, the Aztecs had an incredibly robust civilization, but since (according to History) human sacrifice was considered a necessity to appease some pretty demanding gods on-the-reg, those 7 percent of people are a brave few.