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If you could travel back in time and alter any one historical event, what would it be?

PraiseXenu 6 Apr 27
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1

I like the religious historical inventions of some here. But, me, I would go back to March 1967 when Charlie Manson was released from jail, and kill the SOB before he went anywhere else and took so many lives and ruined so many others. No moral qualms about it whatsoever. Like taking out a terrorist before they kill the innocents.

12

The burning of the Library at Alexandria.

Not sure how to stop this alone, and for good, besides take everything.

@rafferty it would require going back in time prior to the event long enough to evacuate books to a safe location. Probably something like a year before, long enough to effectively convince enough people that it's going to happen to get people to help.

8

I would travel back to the last time someone posted this question here. (-:

7

I would change the orbit of the so called dinosaur killer asteroid 65 million years ago so it will miss the Earth.
Why? Just to see if the dinos would develop true intelligence or just evolve into birds anyway.

@HoracioM I think it’s Voyager not TNG, no?

7

The last Presidential election.

7

I do not want to travel back in time. Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana. (Thanks, Groucho.)

But they love a peach.

You’ve got a point. Maybe if you wear a hat no one will notice cigar waggle

6

Go and have a good chat with myself at 11 years old, change my own life for the better. There are too many variables the further you go back and I wouldn't want to be responsible for them.

Were you really foolish at 11 years old? Would it really have been better, or merely different?

6

It would have to be something to do with Columbus not being born.

Iffy Level 5 Apr 28, 2018

Cristobal Colon (alias Christopher Columbus) was way behind the Vikings and only slightly ahead of others who wished to sail ever more Westwards. He, an Italian, was lucky in that the Catholic Monarchs of Spain gave him three (cheap) ships as a sort of venture capital excercise. The deaths of so many South Americans was not mass slaughter by force of arms - it was susceptibility to the common cold!

@Petter Umm... My apologies. That is not correct. I've seen some of his own surviving documents an he personally sanctioned the slaughters. Then there is the records from merchants who explicitly speak about training the peasants to be more gentle to the Arawacks because the "die too easily". The law was that for each European killed by the natives, the colonizers will kill 100 of them. The deaths by decease just made the genocide that much quicker. The main culprit was their slaughter.

just go back and smash the rudders off all those ships like three weeks in, and there you go.

@Elsantoasauro Interesting.

6

If I could I wouldn't. If I had to I'd ensure Hitler was accepted into art school.

yes, because lack of art school was the problem, lol...

The guy really wanted to be an artist before WW I and was rejected twice. I do wonder how things would have played out if he was accepted

6

The burning of the library of Alexandria. Or maybe silence Augustine of Hippo.

6

When men subjugated women from power...

6

Kill Constantine and the Christian Church never unifys under one book.
Kill the profit Mohammad
Cause the destruction of Russia to stop the arms race!

Interesting use of language, but wouldn't one say that L Ron Hubbard was a greater profit, along with present day Televangelists and the mediaeval Catholic church?

Without the influence of Christianity, Muhammad's religion would have been significantly different. A lot of stories in the Qur'an are just retelling of Jewish and Christian mythology.

6

I would go back to just before the scientist put me in the machine, and slap the shit out of him. "DON'T MESS WITH TIME, FUCKER." Time travel is dangerous. ?

6

Anyone who really is a student of history knows this is a trick question. Any event in history if altered could just as easily have made things worse. No one has a crystal ball. That being said, my entry would be as follows. When the Praetorian Guard rioted against Pertinax in 193ad, and he chose to talk to them, he persuaded them to end their rebellion and support his rule. Instead of killing him. Interesting question.

I read this question assuming we were dreaming; we know you can't go back, and if you could...your domino effect. This is just an exercise in "what do you wish you could change."

It's certainly possible to travel into the future. Time dilation and all.

Assuming you could make yourself understood. How's your Greek? That was the common language of the Roman Empire.

@TaraMarshall It's assumed in the way the question is phrased. In classical Rome, Latin was the language used in imperial matters, so presumably Pertinax was speaking Latin. In any event, the guardsman who got bored with his speech and stabbed him didn't understand Latin, he spoke a Germanic tongue. And since the problem is preventing one impatient guardsman from stabbing the Emperor, presumably more direct methods would have sufficed. 🙂

@Druvius, just like when a native speaker of Hindavi and a native speaker of Chinese converse today, they use the universal language, English. That's what Greek was in the Roman Empire.

5

I already have, a lot of them, you wouldn't believe what I changed for the better.

5

Recommended novel on this subject - Making History by Stephen Fry [en.wikipedia.org]

Jnei Level 8 Apr 28, 2018

Sounds interesting. I guess Hitler is the obvious choice for many.

5

I would go back and stop the evolution of apes into humans.

Honestly, I believe the earth would be a better place if there were no humans on it.

Restrain the evolution of our last common link with chimps, and instead "help" the closest linked we have with Bonobos. Bonobos are a lot more chill than chimps. We may turn out better with some of their conflict resolving instincts. ?

i wonder at statements like this.

5
  1. shoot hitler's dad in the balls.

  2. shoot philip of macedonia in the balls

  3. shoot joe stalin's grandpa in the balls.

its a hard pick. i can't decide. maybe not shoot em, that might kill em and really change shit. Maybe just give em a phenobarb shot and an xray blast to the nards would hook it up.

Phil would get rid of Alexander the Great

hitler and joe would alter stuff significantly, in favor of not killing millions of people

honorable mention to madam blatavatsky, eugen fisher, and ayn rand, who i would either whack as kids before they can write, or take them back to pre civilization times and leave them there.

recommend either me or someone else definitely whack shiro ishii. right after signing the Geneva convention, or earlier.

hmm.. go back and give bob oppenheimer a massive dose of lsd and leo slzard too, and take them out of the whole nuclear weapon thing. heisenberg, too. monkeywrench them pretty good and scramble them so they never develop it and just do music and beatnik poetry.

5

I wouldn't take that job where I met my eventual ex-wife.

5

End Citizens United!

jasen Level 8 Apr 28, 2018
5

I would take a gun back to the Council of Nicea and kill as many of those fuckers as I could. Then I would burn every scrap of paper in the room.

Then off to Cathage to do the same. But yes, good call.

I like it!

Damp or dry? (For which colour of smoke?)

5

Trump getting elected.

ebdb Level 7 Apr 27, 2018
4

The 2016 election.

4

Id go back one day and make a few choice bets

4

Rule #1 of Time Traveling: You must go back an kill Hitler.
Having done that, I would just travel from time to time, and see as much as I can before I die.
Thinking about it for an extra second, I would introduce advance technologies to the native tribes in the Americas. I don't like Columbus.

3

id go back and steal parts for three more time machines and then hide them.

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