# Come on, let's change history properly **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [January 12, 2017, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/come-on-lets-change-history-properly/776980 "2017-01-12T18:45:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Don\_t\_Panic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/don_t_panic/32/398_2.png) [@Don\_t\_Panic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_t_Panic)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2017, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/come-on-lets-change-history-properly/776980/1 "2017-01-12T18:45:33Z")
Everyone who has a time machine always goes back and kills Hitler, right? To prevent WWII. But, maybe the times were right for a Hitler to arise, and if you kill him, the next corporal over will step into his shoes. When you think about it, the cause of WWII was really WWI, and the state Germany was in after that. So, how about we prevent WWI? Fine, let’s go back and save the archduke Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Only that won’t work. The assassination was the spark that lit the fire, but Europe at that time was basically a gasoline-soaked tinderbox. Some other damned fool thing in the Balkans will happen instead. What we want to do is get rid of the system of alliances, and a united Germany run on the principles of Prussian militarism. So I’d kill Bismarck. That’s what I’d do. Problem is, now I suspect that I have to go back even further, and I just don’t know enough about history at the time immediately before that. What do you think? ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2017, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/come-on-lets-change-history-properly/776980/2 "2017-01-12T19:08:38Z")
You are thinking much too recently. I’d try to stop the rise of monotheism in Israel/Judea. Prevent a large percentage of the bloodshed that has taken place in the world in the past couple of thousand years. (Of course, there would be whole other excuses for bloodshed, but that’s alternate timeline me’s problem.) ---
**Author:** ![Sefton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5daacb/32.png) [@Sefton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sefton)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2017, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/come-on-lets-change-history-properly/776980/3 "2017-01-12T19:18:54Z")
If Napoleon had successfully united Europe, I think it would solve a lot of problems. If I could go back in time, I’d try to convince him to seek peace when he was at the height of his power. I’d also like to tell Isaac Newton about electricity and the atom. Then the British empire would simply take over the world. ---
**Author:** ![snoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/43a26b/32.png) [@snoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snoe)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2017, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/come-on-lets-change-history-properly/776980/4 "2017-01-12T19:34:01Z")
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitler’s\_Thirty\_Days\_to\_Power](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitler's_Thirty_Days_to_Power) Turner argues (persuasively, I think) that Hitler’s rise to power was anything but inevitable _even after he had already taken the Nazi party to a Reichstag plurality_. So let’s not kill Baby Hitler - let’s kill Hitler in 1932 or early 1933. He’ll be remembered as the model for Roderick Spode and The Great Dictator. (Not going to check the years on those works - you know what I mean.) Once we see what happens, we can always redo it. I’m worried about how the Cold War develops, especially w/r/t nukes, but shit - possibly, without a WWII we never get a Communist China, nor an Eastern Bloc. ---
**Author:** ![Don\_t\_Panic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/don_t_panic/32/398_2.png) [@Don\_t\_Panic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_t_Panic)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2017, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/come-on-lets-change-history-properly/776980/5 "2017-01-12T19:40:19Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > (Of course, there would be whole other excuses for bloodshed, but that’s alternate timeline me’s problem.) Well, yeah. For one thing, with no Christianity spreading, now you still have pagan Germans. If you ask Hitler, he’ll tell you that he’s no fan of Christianity. Pagan Germans would be much more ferocious. So, I’m a bit skeptical about your idea. Sorry. I guess I’m still sort of specifically trying to prevent WWII. ---
**Author:** ![Sefton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5daacb/32.png) [@Sefton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sefton)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2017, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/come-on-lets-change-history-properly/776980/6 "2017-01-12T20:13:25Z")
If you could go back in time and make the [March Revolution](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_revolutions_of_1848%E2%80%9349) succeed, Germany would have become a liberal democracy in 1848. Presumably, that means no power for Otto von Bismarck, Kaiser Wilhelm, or Adolf Hitler. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2017, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/come-on-lets-change-history-properly/776980/7 "2017-01-12T20:21:42Z")
[Careful!](http://www.tor.com/2011/08/31/wikihistory/) ---
**Author:** ![Don\_t\_Panic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/don_t_panic/32/398_2.png) [@Don\_t\_Panic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_t_Panic)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2017, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/come-on-lets-change-history-properly/776980/8 "2017-01-12T20:34:26Z")
> [@Sefton](#): > > If you could go back in time and make the [March Revolution](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_revolutions_of_1848%E2%80%9349) succeed, Germany would have become a liberal democracy in 1848. Presumably, that means no power for Otto von Bismarck, Kaiser Wilhelm, or Adolf Hitler. Oh, now we’re talking. I need to look into this. How to make it succeed, though? There were revolutions all over the shop in Europe in and around 1848, and they mostly failed. There seems to have been some… structural issues. ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2017, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/come-on-lets-change-history-properly/776980/9 "2017-01-12T20:43:43Z")
> [@Martian Bigfoot](#): > > Oh, now we’re talking. I need to look into this. How to make it succeed, though? There were revolutions all over the shop in Europe in and around 1848, and they mostly failed. There seems to have been some… structural issues. There was some chap explored some of these questions along those lines. Wild hair, wilder beard. I wonder what happened to him? (The short answer is that the powers that be managed to exploit the difference in interests between the liberal middle classes and the radical working classes as the demands of the latter started to frighten the former that political and economic chaos threatened). ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2017, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/come-on-lets-change-history-properly/776980/10 "2017-01-12T20:44:15Z")
> [@Sefton](#): > > If you could go back in time and make the [March Revolution](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_revolutions_of_1848%E2%80%9349) succeed, Germany would have become a liberal democracy in 1848. Presumably, that means no power for Otto von Bismarck, Kaiser Wilhelm, or Adolf Hitler. That makes good sense. I’d also save Lincoln at Ford’s Theatre in 1865. Reconstruction would’ve gone much better, and a lot of racial and social problems in America since then might’ve been prevented or at least diminished. Saving Kennedy in Dallas in 1963 would probably have meant a smarter, more effective, counterinsurgency-based approach to the Vietnam War (if it even came to that - JFK talked to several aides about pulling U.S. advisors out of South Vietnam), saved many lives, and perhaps have kept Nixon out of the White House. ---
**Author:** ![snoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/43a26b/32.png) [@snoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snoe)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2017, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/come-on-lets-change-history-properly/776980/11 "2017-01-12T21:00:18Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > Saving Kennedy in Dallas in 1963 would probably have meant a smarter, more effective, counterinsurgency-based approach to the Vietnam War (if it even came to that - JFK talked to several aides about pulling U.S. advisors out of South Vietnam), saved many lives, and perhaps have kept Nixon out of the White House. I wonder how JFK would have dealt with the civil rights movement (and they would have dealt with him). LBJ, for all his many faults, seemed to have a visceral sense of the unfairness of Jim Crow that JFK either lacked or was reluctant to express. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2017, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/come-on-lets-change-history-properly/776980/12 "2017-01-12T22:17:48Z")
WWI may have caused WWII, but it didn’t have to involve the Holocaust. It would probably be worth killing Hitler on that basis. Granted, that might have left us with more anti-Jew racism than we have today, but Hollywood will still have been turning out films that encourage peace and equality between races for the whole duration, which would have had a strong effect on most still. And there’s probably no way to prevent the masses of blood shed during the 20th century. It’s not like there was no war before WWI and WWII. All that changed was our ability to kill people really far away and really fast. WWI and WWII are down to technological innovation, not politics. And minus them, maybe we wouldn’t have figured out how wasteful war is, to settle disputes. Overall, it just takes money, delivers it to your enemy, and then sets itself on fire in front of him. Woohoo? ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2017, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/come-on-lets-change-history-properly/776980/13 "2017-01-12T23:41:23Z")
No, no, no, don’t harm Bismarck! If he hadn’t(aggressively) unified Germany, my great-grandfather, at the age of sixteen, wouldn’t have become a draft dodger and stowed away on a ship to the US. \*\*\* I\*\*\* wouldn’t be here, at least not in quite the form I am. ---
**Author:** ![Don\_t\_Panic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/don_t_panic/32/398_2.png) [@Don\_t\_Panic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_t_Panic)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2017, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/come-on-lets-change-history-properly/776980/14 "2017-01-13T00:55:18Z")
> [@PatrickLondon](#): > > There was some chap explored some of these questions along those lines. Wild hair, wilder beard. I wonder what happened to him? > [@Baker](#): > > No, no, no, don’t harm Bismarck! If he hadn’t(aggressively) unified Germany, my great-grandfather, at the age of sixteen, wouldn’t have become a draft dodger and stowed away on a ship to the US. \*\*\* I\*\*\* wouldn’t be here, at least not in quite the form I am. 😛 Always these flippin’ unintended consequences. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2017, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/come-on-lets-change-history-properly/776980/15 "2017-01-13T04:33:55Z")
> [@snoe](#): > > I wonder how JFK would have dealt with the civil rights movement (and they would have dealt with him). LBJ, for all his many faults, seemed to have a visceral sense of the unfairness of Jim Crow that JFK either lacked or was reluctant to express. I couldn’t disagree more: [Televised Address to the Nation on Civil Rights | JFK Library](https://www.jfklibrary.org/Asset-Viewer/LH8F_0Mzv0e6Ro1yEm74Ng.aspx). Although he didn’t begin his time in the White House that way, he eventually stood up for civil rights and put his Administration on the line for it. Polls by the time he died showed a majority of Americans thought he was pushing too hard on the issue, and might even be endangering his reelection. He kept pushing. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2017, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/come-on-lets-change-history-properly/776980/16 "2017-01-13T04:51:17Z")
Why mess around with recent history? Go back and kill Augustus Caesar. Without him, the Roman Empire would have just been a passing fad. ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2017, 6:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/come-on-lets-change-history-properly/776980/17 "2017-01-13T06:00:21Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > I’d also save Lincoln at Ford’s Theatre in 1865. Reconstruction would’ve gone much better, Not sure I agree on this one. Depends on what you consider “better” - Lincoln likely would have been more conciliatory, but I’m not sure that would have been a good thing. Reconstruction’s biggest failure IMHO is that it ended too soon and was too incomplete. ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2017, 6:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/come-on-lets-change-history-properly/776980/18 "2017-01-13T06:09:23Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Why mess around with recent history? Go back and kill Augustus Caesar. Without him, the Roman Empire would have just been a passing fad. Not sure about this one either - Rome was already an unquestioned juggernaut before Augustus. He marked an important stage in state evolution, but I’m not sure he was personally pivotal in its endurance. I’d be more interested in preserving the WRE through its final travails and have it endure. Much trickier to arrange but not impossible and potentially monumentally far-reaching in its impact on Western Europe. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2017, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/come-on-lets-change-history-properly/776980/19 "2017-01-13T16:56:18Z")
> [@Tamerlane](#): > > Not sure I agree on this one. Depends on what you consider “better” - Lincoln likely would have been more conciliatory, but I’m not sure that would have been a good thing. Reconstruction’s biggest failure IMHO is that it ended too soon and was too incomplete. Agreed as to Reconstruction’s failures, but Lincoln was much more politically skillful than Andrew Johnson, had immense public standing for having won the Civil War, and was much more concerned for the rights of freed Southern blacks than Johnson was. ---
**Author:** ![Don\_t\_Panic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/don_t_panic/32/398_2.png) [@Don\_t\_Panic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_t_Panic)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2017, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/come-on-lets-change-history-properly/776980/20 "2017-01-13T17:48:20Z")
> [@Tamerlane](#): > > Not sure about this one either - Rome was already an unquestioned juggernaut before Augustus. He marked an important stage in state evolution, but I’m not sure he was personally pivotal in its endurance. OK, let’s whack Augustus and give the gig to someone else. Hmm, who is around? Well, there’s Mark Antony. Surely a great political mind! Whoops, he just gave away control of the East to his Egyptian girlfriend and their kids. Great start. No matter, I’m sure he’ll bounce back. I bet he has a plan. And if not, I bet \*someone \*has plan. Right? One that doesn’t involve constant civil war and stabbing people to death on the senate floor, like we’ve been doing for a while now. 'Cause, you know, if things keep going to hell in a handcart like this, keeping control of the provinces may be a bit tricky in the long run. So… a man with with a plan. Someone? Anyone? Hello? [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/come-on-lets-change-history-properly/776980.md?page=2)