Augmented Reality is a Dream Come True for History Buffs

Are you one of those people who dream of going to France, not to take that cheesy picture with the Eiffel Tower, but to go up northwest of Paris to Omaha Beach, east to Verdun or Bastogne in Belgium, or head north to visit the Somme and other great battlefields from WW1 and WW2?

Or perhaps you are more interested in following the glorious footsteps of Napoleon’s Grande Armée starting from Paris, and going through Switzerland, Italy, Germany, Poland, and all the way into Moscow, recreate the army’s heartbreaking retreat and close your tour in none other than Waterloo, the scene of the infamous final battle.

Maybe you’re more into classical history and want to see where Hannibal crossed the Alps with his war elephants and see where King Leonidas and his 300 Spartans made their last stand in the Hot Gates of Greece. Since you’re already there, why not follow Alexander the Great’s steps as he made his way from Pellas all the way deep into India, conquering Persepolis and the Persian Empire along the way.

So you book a flight and arrive at what once was a decisive battlefield that changed the world forever only to realize that:

1. You are dab in the middle of nowhere.
2. It’s nothing like what you had pictured from reading about it.
3. You mostly have to rely on your imagination to make sense of what you are seeing.

It’s even somewhat disappointing…

Most battlefields, whether ancient or not, have changed a lot over the years. Take Waterloo for example, just 5 years after the battle King William I of The Netherlands ordered the construction of a monument, the Lion’s Mound. Lion’s Mound is an artificial hill constructed using earth from the battlefield itself. This, of course, greatly altered the look and feel of this historical location.

This is true to all battlefields and historical locations around the world. Some alterations have been man made and some have been the result of natural processes such as tides changing, rivers drying out, and thick forests reclaiming their territory.