Living History places are locations where the past is brought to life as best possible and presented for all to experience. One of the best (in the USA), and they even publish their own magazine, is Colonial Williamsburg.


A place I have on my wish list to visit. Colonial Williamsburg receives great praise for being as authentic as possible.

https://www.colonialwilliamsburg.com...om=homedefault



Other living history events, such as reenactments of historic battles, Civil War Battles for example, are great living history events that both educate and illustrate and provoke thought. Reenactments of the annual Fur Trappers/ Rocky Mountain Rendezvous is another example. Rocky_Mountain_Rendezvous


Certainly more are done here in the USA and around the world to help preserve and understand our human history.


Post other examples to share.

My next door neighbor is a good resource, but he mostly talks about how his bowels don't work the way they used to

That is useful information and the next time I visit this may prove valuable. It is, however, very personal and localized history that does not require wide dissemination to the masses. Thus it serves no real relevant function in this thread. I thank you nonetheless for your honest attempt at padding your post count while simultaneously contributing to the History Forum. History will thank you for your time and effort.

I humbly disagree. Gettysburg does put on a very nice show that nearly entirely has nothing to do with how things were. I thoroughly enjoyed my trip there, but it was slightly less accurate a depiction of the human condition during that war as a prize winning turnip at the local County Fair would be. At the end, I bought a lead musket ball and a small plastic flag on a stick. They also, like all historical reenactments, had a bit where they made candles. That part seemed promising, but it apparently takes a long time to make candles. Same for the blacksmith. He was making a horseshoe or maybe a nail, but I only had a week in town so I didn't get to see the final product.

An old friend of mine has a really nice cannon that is used during the production. It is pretty cool because it makes a loud sound. He assured me that if he loaded it with a cannonball or shot that it would either blow up and cause mayhem in the immediate area or cause mayhem where he aimed it. He had a very nice beard.

At least my suggested resource realistically depicts a normal plebe doing everything he could to avoid going to Korea.

Complete authenticity is, of course, and has you so blithely and liberally point out; impossible. The main thrust is to at least hear the civil war cannon go off, not have the grape shot mow down spectators and actors alike - however useful that would no doubt be. The wretched fact that you hadn't the time to see a nail or horse shoe being made shows the lack of modern patience in understanding how long simple tasks once took. There is probably a lesson in that, but most would fail to absorb it anyway so let it pass. Most have no time for such tomfoolery today. Moving on to the trinket store to purchase some souvenir made in china no doubt.


It takes time to grow a prize winning turnip - or tomato or pumpkin. And money to bribe the judge(s). No doubt science will soon produce instantaneous prize-wining pumpkins and you can bribe the judge with quick money transfers using your iPhone, instead of clandestine meetings in backroom dark places or abandon warehouses to physically exchange real legal tender. I applaud such advancements as genuine progress. But then soon even these new phenomena will also be tossed into the dustbin of history and just be laughable anachronisms to some new generation.


Perhaps you agree with Henry Ford when he quipped: History is Bunk. If that is your philosophical stance on history then run if up the flag pole with pride and start your goose-stepping march through the plebian herd with an iron will; showing all the true road to wisdom, good beer, prize-wining turnips and ultimate utopia. I will cheer you on. Chez would not; steeped as he is in the historical prison of being a dunderheaded limey and still under the crushing heel of a Queen.

The Mob Museum in Las Vegas now has a reenactment of a speakeasy in the basement. They remind you that it is a speakeasy, and not a bar, at every opportunity.

Norfolk

I've been to that Museum. Great stuff. We need to visit together and point out to the administrators needed enhancements to make it more authentic. For example, your chance of emerging from the place with no broken bones or with no bullet holes set at 3 to 1.

L'Anse aux Meadows National Historic Site - early 11th century Viking settlement

Louisbourg - early-mid 18th century French Fortress

Upper Canada Village - mid-19th century rural life