The idea of time travel to observe history was the premise of the segment on Bullwinkle with the talking dog, Mr. Peabody, and his boy Sherman.
A childhood favorite of mine.
There was also a short run TV series with a young guy and boy doing time travel to historic times.
Voyagers! (1982)
Phineas Bogg (Jon-Erik Hexum) and his young sidekick, Jeffrey Jones (Meeno Peluce), race through time, fixing mistakes in history and hobnobbing with a host of legendary figures in this 1980s adventure series that paved the way for shows such as “Quantum Leap.” This collection of episodes finds Phineas and Jeffrey in the company of Teddy Roosevelt, Spartacus, Thomas Edison, Cleopatra, the Wright brothers and Jack the Ripper, among others.
Jon-Erik Hexum later met with a tragic accident while working on another TV series:
During a break between scenes on the set on October 12, 1984, Jon-Erik Hexum became bored with the filming delays. He began playing Russian roulette with what he believed was a harmless .44 Magnum prop gun and jokingly placed it to his temple and pulled the trigger. The shot sent the wadding from the blank cartridge into Hexum’s skull, driving a bone fragment the size of a quarter into his brain and causing massive hemorrhaging. Hexum was rushed to the hospital, where he eventually was declared brain dead. On October 18, he was taken off life support.