How would you change history?

[Sharwood]

Inspired by the "Time travellers" and "Who would you bring back?" threads. If you could change history in any way, what would it be? And why? This is fairly open-ended, but I want it to actually make sense.

Personally, I think I'd use the press to push the US into WWII in 1940. France doesn't fall, Germany and Italy are defeated quickly, Russia doesn't take over Eastern Europe, and Japan would easily be subdued. I thought about sending French troops to oust the Germans from the Rhineland in 1936, but I think that would just postpone the German question, not solve it.

Then of course there's the making my ancestors Kings of a revitalised British Empire somehow, so I'd be born as the heir to "the Empire on which the sun never sets," but I'm not sure how to manage that one.

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

How far back can we go? Can we re-route dinosaur-killing asteroids, or does "history" really mean "written history"?

 

[Mowque]

My chronic fear of alt-history 'butterflies' would have me incapable of taking action.

 

[eastsidebagel]

Killing Hitler (or any other modern dictator) when he was just a simple private in WW1, saving millions of lives.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I'd probably stick with correcting my own more recent mistakes, so as not to prevent my birth or something. I don't think there would be significant "butterflies" from something like making it so that I actually turned in a few papers and had a better GPA, at least good enough to keep the HOPE scholarship which I think I'm going to loose after this semester.



If it weren't for such fears (like if these would all be in alternate universes and I could pick which one I wished to live in after seeing how things turn out), I'd probably change a lot. I'd probably stop a lot of wars, and maybe give a few civs a 2000 year head start technologically. I'd probably try to prevent the conditions leading up to WWII instead of entering the war sooner. I'd make the US be much more generous towards the losers of WWI (if I'd even had us enter that war), and make would try to make the civil rights movement triumph before that, or maybe prevent racism from ever arising. I'd make it so that no one could born into slavery (although it could still be used a punishment for crimes and people could choose to sell themselves into slavery if desperate enough) starting before the American Revolution. I'd make the US Constitution only allow tariffs based on externalities, but also allow them on exports, and only allow criminals and people carrying highly contagious diseases to be excluded by our immigration rules. I'd make citizenship be voluntary and merit based instead of automatic based on descent or place of birth. I might make England develop into a constitutional republic much like the US instead of restoring the monarchy after Cromwell. I might send some knowledge of modern medical science back to before the Black Death. I might make the Native Americans domesticate more animals instead of hunting them to extinction, so they would develop their own diseases and immunity to diseases so that the Europeans were less effective in taking them over. I make the Roman Republic become more democratic and less corrupt and prevent the rise of the empire.

 

[Dachs]

I'd kind of like to live my life starting in about fifth grade all over again.

Also, I'd probably fiddle with some of my pet causes. It would be nice to keep Georgios Maniakes from dying, or tell Alexandros not to go into his garden and play with the diseased monkeys. Or get Friedrich III a good doctor...or kill Eukratides before he starts off...

Or, to throw you people a curveball, get rid of Trịnh Tạc.

 

[JonathanStrange]

I already have; J. Caesar's Roma Eterna never did happen, not on my watch.

 

[generalstaff]

Central Powers victory in WWI might improve things, but I think it would also cause some major turmoil
Pros
-Hitler not taking power
-Likely early independence for a few colonies (Germany, Austria-Hungary, and the Ottoman Empire are unlikely to be able to be able to take over all of Britain and France's possessions)
-Russia no longer Czarist
-No Greco-Turkish population exchange

Cons
-Political turmoil in France and Britain
-US would go into an early depression due to France and Britain not being able to pay debts and likely reparations
-Loss of Serbian, Greek, and Romanian independence
-Stalin would still take power in the USSR

 

[Plotinus]

I'd prevent Julian the Apostate from dying in battle and give him a long and glorious reign instead, just to see what happened.

Then I'd go back and stop Constantius II's early death and do the same thing to him instead, to see what happened this time.

I doubt that either of these would necessarily make the world better, but it would be an interesting experiment to find out just how much culture, society and religion have been determined by imperial policy.

 

[North King]

Probably give the Americas circa 1492 a lot of smallpox vaccine.

 

[Sharwood]

How far back can we go? Can we re-route dinosaur-killing asteroids, or does "history" really mean "written history"?

I'd prefer written, or even archaeological -as opposed to palaeontological - history, but if you really want a world of super-intelligent killer dinosaurs, go for it.

I'd kind of like to live my life starting in about fifth grade all over again.

I've often thought of this myself. A related scenario would be going back in time, sleeping with a girl I blew it with, then going back a little further to do the same with another. Eventually I'd go back to being a small child, and just live my life over with all my knowledge intact.

 

[alcal]

Turks capture Wien in 1683 and conquer central Europe and Italy.

-Rome become one of center of islam.
-Hitler do not take power.
-France is the most powerful nation in the world.

 

[Tee Kay]

I would like to erase myself from time.

 

[Camikaze]

Without the obvious 'stop war, kill Hitler', I think it would be pretty interesting to see what would have happened if the War of the Roses went the other way. No Anglican church perhaps? Or maybe an inevitable transition to Protestantism would have occurred in Britain anyway? Who knows?

 

[alcal]

I would like to erase myself from time.

I would have liked to stop my father from having sex with my mother and creating me. The entire world would never be the same.

 

[Sharwood]

I would have liked to stop my father from having sex with my mother and creating me. The entire world would never be the same.

I would like to stop my grandfather from having sex with my grandmother, then do so myself. In this way, I would be the only living creature in the universe able to save it by defeating the brains.

 

[Dachs]

Turks capture Wien in 1683 and conquer central Europe and Italy.

-Rome become one of center of islam.
-Hitler do not take power.
-France is the most powerful nation in the world.

I agree with the last two - well, at least in the short-to-medium term - but the first one is hilariously wrong. Actually, even if the Turks had got Vienna it really wasn't viable for them to go much further.

 

[alcal]

I agree with the last two - well, at least in the short-to-medium term - but the first one is hilariously wrong. Actually, even if the Turks had got Vienna it really wasn't viable for them to go much further.

All depens on if Poland, France and Spain had allied against turkey. Otherwise north Italy would have become a part of Islam, as Bosnia and Albania.

 

[Dachs]

All depens on if Poland, France and Spain had allied against turkey. Otherwise north Italy would have become a part of Islam, as Bosnia and Albania.

The Ottoman Empire did not have the mojo to break into northern Italy. They couldn't even hold southern Italy.

 

[Huayna Capac357]

Give paleo-Indians horses, pigs, and cows and take horses, pigs, and cows out from Eurasia.