Retweeting History

First of all, I know. I've been lax in keeping up with "My Piles". Won't happen again. Now, our feature presentation...

PREMISE: Assume for the moment that time travel not only is a distinct possibility but a genuine probability right now. Assume also that the adverse side effects of propelling a human being backwards through time, such as one's molecules spontaneously combusting by exponentially increasing their own personal acceleration by a factor of ten times the speed of light, have also been "taken care of" (and not by our good engineer friends at Toyota either). Further assume that it is possible to introduce what essentially would be alien technology to our more formative cultures without fundamentally altering the...okay, nuts to this science fair mumbo-jumbo!

I want to take social media back to the past to follow history's greatest Tweeters and Friends. Got it? Work with me on this people.

Just imagine how different the post-Civil War era might have been if Ford's Theater had Wi-Fi. History might record that as John Wilkes Booth prepared to make his move into President Lincoln's theater box, he drew his trusty Deringer from his suit jacket pocket and as he prepared to fire...his mobile started blowing up with:

"JWB?"
"Sup?"
"Where u at?"
"We hangin 2nite?"
"Text ittttt"

By the time he responded to all of his crew, the play had concluded and the President's entourage was well on their way back to the White House. As he exited the theater, frustrated by distraction, he updated his Facebook status as: "Sic Temper iPhonus".

Matchmaking websites have certainly had their fair share of influence on writing the stories of many couples but could it help rewrite the story of history's original couple?

After God created man and woman, he then wired The Garden of Eden with 3G Wi-Max. One day Adam signed up for eHarmony.com and within minutes he received his first match. He kept searching for others but was becoming increasingly frustrated by the number of matches he was receiving...one. "How many women are on this site?" he asked.

Then after God created Free Communication Weekend, Adam uploaded a younger-looking profile photo, lied about his age and changed his Interests to: "Eating Fruit" and "Rebelling Against Authority" and he and Eve lived happily ever after in sin.

During Revolutionary times, Twitter certainly could have saved Paul Revere, or more specifically his horse, a lot of wear and tear on his historic ride.

SamuelAdams Thanks Paulie! RT @Paul_Revere The Red Coats are coming!

NHaler 5 Ways to Identify a #RedCoat http://bit.ly/ohj439 RT @Paul_Revere The Red Coats are coming!

GeoWash RT @Paul_Revere The Red Coats are coming!

JPJones Aw snap! RT @Paul_Revere The Red Coats are coming!

SybLud1776 RT @Paul_Revere The Red Coats are coming!

What about the mystery behind the identity of the notorious Deep Throat during the Richard Nixon Watergate Scandal? It took nearly four decades to discover that William Mark Felt, Sr. was in fact Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein's "source" that blew the roof off the investigation of the Nixon White House. Although some still dispute that finding, Deep Throat could have easily been outed a lot earlier.

Imagine Woodward and Bernstein calling for another midnight clandestine meeting with their "source". As the two arrive at the Manhattan parking garage, they are met by a cadre of Secret Service agents and CIA operatives with a dejected Deep Throat in custody in the back of a black van. The two reporters later log into Foursquare and discover that just prior to midnight DeepThrt4Evr checked in, earned a "Crunked Badge" and "became the Mayor" of that parking garage.

As for the secret Nixon recordings, those would have been on YouTube faster than you could say G. Gordon Liddy.

The original Colonies' desire to assert their freedom from the tyranny of Great Britain could have gained much more viral momentum with Facebook:

Thomas Jefferson posted a note "The unanimous Declaration of the 13 united States of America"

"When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth..."

John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, John Hancock and 13 others like this

Only 140-characters for William Shakespeare to update his current status on Twitter? What would that be like?

"The tapestry of the morn is woven of crimson waves & amber ribbon and lo from deep within the caverns of mine lovelorn bosom I say to thee I..."

While I'm sure Facebook's many apps would have held some appeal in historical circles, I think it's safe to say even Al Capone would have gotten sick of Mafia Wars...though I do think he might have become a fan of Bejeweled Blitz.

And just think of the horrible atrocities that have plagued human history that could have been avoided with the grass roots social uprising initiatives provided by Facebook Groups:

Malcom X joined the group I'm so tired of ignorant people saying they're not racist when they really are

Joseph, Mary and 10 other friends joined the group If this group gets one million followers then they won't crucify Jesus

Classical music wunderkind Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart tried to take advantage of the convenience of MySpace Music but after the third lack of movement of his web browser (due to his MySpace page constantly crashing IE6 when loading) the gifted composer's health and spirit quickly deteriorate...all while Mozart's arch nemesis Sallieri, laughing himself into insanity from his cell in a mental institution, screams "MySpace is GeoCities! HaHaHaHa!"

And although Twitter would be of great help in a lot of history's most memorable moments, American heroine Amelia Earhardt's mysterious disappearance would not have been one of them. After all, no one can ever find anyone with Twitter's People Search function.