No plague in 5th century BC Athens.
Why this?
Carter’s Iranian hostage rescue goes off without a hitch and the nation rewards him with a second term. Much of the evils of today can be traced back to Reagan- the notion that government is evil and is a beast to be starved, the idea that there is a free lunch and we’re going to eat it, the demonization of unions, unfettered militarism, etc. Ronald Reagan should be remembered as a second-rate actor, not the patron saint of conservatism.
Prevent the issues faced by the Vinland Settlers so that initial contact between Europeans and Native Americans was very slow and in low numbers. By the time the rest of the lot got there, the Natives and the Vinland populations of immigrants should have had time to adjust to both diseases and cultural/technological advances held by Europeans.
Because it would’ve been Nixon in Dallas instead of JFK?
When I’m walking in the rain I often imagine going back in time and introducing the folks of the Lewis and Clark expedition to marvels of Gore-Tex and good hiking boots.
Robert Kennedy is not assassinated. I would go back to JFK’s assassination but I think the wheels were already turning for Vietnam and as Pres. he wouldn’t have been able to do much. I like to think that Bobby would have changed this.
I’d set it up so the British Empire was still around. Without the unsavoury racism and so on, though.
A decisive win for the British against the traitorous rebellion by the American oligarchy and voila healthcare for all, the British Empire still rules the world. No WW1 and 2 either. Happy 4th 
It’s more complicated than that - I’d actually say the Empire’s dissolution really started with the partition/independence of India in 1947 - but I think it’d be very interesting to see how things would have turned out if the British had won the American War of Independence (or, having lost it, expanded their holdings in Canada further south and effectively kept the US at the original 13 colonies).
Well yes indeed, Napoleon would have had a much a harder time too. That could have slowed down the spread of nationalism and buy the old monarchies more time. hmm
Um… how do we do that and still eliminate that massive amount of human sacrifice thing? Because I really don’t like that mesoamerican practice and would like to see it still eliminated. I’m not sure you can do that and still have something you can call an “Aztec culture”.
Make the Byzantine and Persian empires work together against the Arab Muslim invaders in the 7th century. Net result; North African Christian civilisation survives (library of Alexandria), there is less of a cultural gap preventing trade and exchange. More peaceful schools would dominate Islamic thought. The Zorastarian faith and Persia’s rich and long-established traditions continue.
It won’t make everything better though, the Catholic Crusades probably do occur eventually, as Europe still would be intolerant of infidels and it would still need a pressure outlet for the knights and glory-hungry kings. I think the blocking of pilgrims by the Muslims was just an convienient excuse, The pagan kingdoms in Eastern Europe weren’t provocative but they still got crusaders sent against them.
I would prevent the siege of Bagdhad in 1258 to save the Grand Library. So much knowledge was lost forever.
I take out Adam and Eve or whomever you think the first humans were. Humans, as we know them fail to evolve. Earth remains a (relatively) peaceful place.
Doctors fail to revive Ronald Reagan, who is replaced by the smarter George Bush early in his first term.
Subtle, but it could massively change the GOP’s spirit.
The Normandy invasion fails when Hitler releases Rommel’s panzers to thwart the invasion. We try again in November, but this time we invade the French Riviera. The invasion stalls because the food and the wine there are so good and the women so friendly. Thus, we use our first nine atomic bombs to wipe out Berlin, Hamburg, Stuttgart, Nuremberg, Munich, Dresden (redundant, I know), Breslau, Cologne, and Frankfurt. (It takes that many to make the bastards surrender.) The fallout drifts east and sickens and kills millions of the soldiers of the Red Army. Stalin concludes that we are batshit crazy and withdraws from eastern Europe, content to resume the oppression and slaughter of his own people. We occupy the less radioactive portions of the Reich, enslave all its ablebodied citizens, bring them to the US and make them build the interstate system several years earlier than in actuality, and force the girls and women to become sex slaves, domestic servants, and concubines. We also take home from France all of the wine and some of the women. We surround Japan with submarines and B-29s and (having used up all our atomic weapons on Germany), slowly turn the entire place into a blackened cinder. We refuse to accept the surrender of the last five Japanese, and order them shot right there at the bargaining table.
We then annex Canada, build a mile-wide moat complete with crocodiles and electrified fences on the Mexican border (remember, we still have that German slave labor, which is still alive since we feed and generally don’t kill our prisoners), and begin a new millenium of American dominance of the planet, a golden age for all (surviving) mankind.
Or maybe to spare us from Watergate (and an eternity with the hackneyed suffix -gate.)
But I suspect it’s going to be more along the lines of preventing the Summer of Love and replacing it with a Summer of Short Haircuts and Respect for Authority.
Well, for Red Sox fans at least, you’d definitely want to change any one of the disasters seen here.
(for those not wanting to click on the YouTube link, think Carter, Wilson, Buckner, et al)
I wouldn’t change anything before my conception for selfish reasons. After my conception, it would be difficult to narrow down to just one event.