History - What would have you made different?

[Amenhotep7]

If you could change one thing in history, no matter how small or big, what would it be? Me? It would probably be to tell the Roman Emperor to not let the Goths across the River Danube...I think that was Rome's biggest mistake.

Or I would also kill Hitler as a baby...Maybe not kill him, but just take him away and send him to some other family where he could have been raised properly...

Or I would tell Harold Hardrada, first real king of the Vikings to not underestimate the British on his march to York...If he wouldn't have gotten cocky, he would have turned the Vikings into an empire!

 

[Mongoloid Cow]

I wouldn't change a thing in history. IMO what has happened has happened for a reason.

That said, I would've made sure that Genghis Khan made the rules of succession a lot clearer so that that ****head Kublai Khan would not have been named the Great Khan

 

[Amenhotep7]

You just contradicted yourself. I'm not familiar with the conquests of the Mongols...What exactly did Kublai do that was so bad?

 

[privatehudson]

I would change it so that my lottery numbers came up last week

Amenhotep7: I don't think it would have made an automatic difference, after all the vikings would still have to contend with Wiliam of Normandy when he landed, and they would have had to do that whilst controlling the land they had taken over already, a by no means easy task without local support.

 

[Mongoloid Cow]

I know it came across bi-polar or something like that.

The Mongol succession is not the easiest thing to describe. But basically Genghis Khan had established a code where promotion came by merit and honour, not by birth-right or favour. In this manner he elected Ogadai over Chagatai and so forth as Ogadai was the only one who he deemed most capable of ruling and the only one his other sons and grandsons would listen to. When Ogadai died, he was succeeded by his son because the Mongols had interpreted the succession of Ogadai as saying Genghis Khan wanted Ogadai's line to rule. Long story short, the Golden Horde became very jealous of this and demanded thatone of their line became the great khan. In the ensuing tumoil, Kublai took the reins but did so against Mongol law, so Arigh-Boke (another noble) went to Qaraqorum and became the Great Khan legally. Eventually Kublai Khan won out, but he began to abandon the steppes for China, which encurred the hatred of the other hordes (Golden Horde, Sibir, Chagataiid Horde, Il-Khanate) and moved the capital to Khanbalik in China, so after his death they revolted. You also don't need me to tell you of his stupid campaigns against Song China, Java and Japan also.

 

[Michael York]

Well, there was a girl back in.........

I would prevent Caeser and Cleo from inadvertantly burning the Great Library to the ground. With, by some estimates, that extra 1000yrs of progress, would my leader have challenged us for Mars or the colonoy on Alpha Centari?

 

[SanPellegrino]

Originally posted by Michael York
Well, there was a girl back in.........

I would prevent Caeser and Cleo from inadvertantly burning the Great Library to the ground. With, by some estimates, that extra 1000yrs of progress, would my leader have challenged us for Mars or the colonoy on Alpha Centari?

or maybe we had a nuclear war in the 1600s and had ceased to exist.

 

[Ossric]

i would pull a "Back to the future" & start betting on all the sports results! Seriously, i wouldn't change a thing. If you would have killed Hitler as a baby, you can't be sure that Stalin wouldn't rampage all over Europe. German scientists, like Einstein wouldn't have gone to the USA & possibly some other nation would have made the first nuke. To many variables...

 

[phoenix_night]

Originally posted by Michael York
I would prevent Caeser and Cleo from inadvertantly burning the Great Library to the ground.

Great choice!

 

[Xen]

Originally posted by Michael York
Well, there was a girl back in.........

I would prevent Caeser and Cleo from inadvertantly burning the Great Library to the ground. With, by some estimates, that extra 1000yrs of progress, would my leader have challenged us for Mars or the colonoy on Alpha Centari?

the tale that Caear, Cleopatra, or mark Antony burned the great library down is a big MYTH

the library wasnt harmed at all, its fully known, and has been for YEARS that teh only thing burned int he frie were warehouses, which werent even storing documents for the library

 

[Xen]

double post

 

[Xen]

Originally posted by Mongoloid Cow
I wouldn't change a thing in history. IMO what has happened has happened for a reason.

that assumes there is such a thing as fate

 

[Xen]

all in all, I would more then likelly preven t the Roman empire from EVER becoming christian- christianity has every right to exists as its own religion, but it shoudl have NEVER been a national religion, espcially for the Roman empire

oh yes, and while doing that, i would make sure the maxentinian, the man who was actually the favorite of the people, the majority of the armies, and the senate as being the nexet emperor of ROme instead of Constantine

 

[Ribannah]

I DID change history. If I only could remember what and how ....

 

[Mescalhead]

If I could, I would have prevented the Romans from ever having occupied Judea. Therefore, the Jews would never have been scattered and would not have had to endure 2,000 years of living in a Europe that, at many times throughout history, showed them just how much they felt about their guests. The Jews would have occupied Palestine this whole time and many problems in the Middle East would quite possibly be non-existant.

If Jesus had even lived the same life, Christianity would most likely not have spread, and Islam would not have been born.

That leaves us with:

-No bloody spread of Christianity in Northern Europe.
-No Islamic invasions.
-No Crusades.
-As has been mentioned, the Library of Alexandria would most likely still be standing.
-No manipulative religious force further contributing to the dark age of Europe.
-No 30 Years' War.
-No Inquisition.
-No complete destruction of Meso American Civilization. Most likely it would have stopped at exploitation.
-No rise of the Third Reich.
-No Holocaust.
-No trouble in the Mid-East as we know it.

I cannot substantiate these claims. And I am sure we would have gotten a bunch of other unwanted events to fill the void, but somehow, the dreamer in me thinks they would not have been quite so destructive of old cultures, which monotheism seems to have a fetish for doing.

 

[phoenix_night]

@Xen,
What did happen to the library?

 

[Karl Lenin]

Communism über alles.

 

[samildanach]

For starters I would make history much shorter or at least cut out all the boring bits. I would have also liked the television to have been invented in around 10 AD so I could just watch replays of Waterloo or Mons Grapius along with pre battle interviews, in battle statistical updates and so forth. I would have also liked hitler to have done his big speeches in English so I could get more a feel for his oratory, "pregnant with power" is how a German colleague once described them to me. Not being able to understand a word of German he just looks like a ranting mad dude.

 

[andrewgprv]

I'd go back about 20 years and milk the stock market for what it's worth.

 

[Riesstiu IV]

Originally posted by phoenix_night
@Xen,
What did happen to the library?

Muslim invaders burned down the great library in the 600s.