If You Could Change Any Historcial Event, What Would You Change?

[Little_Nemo]

@foolsguinea

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.

Whta might have been interesting was if there was a Kennedy/Johnson effect. Kennedy talked about civil rights but it was Johnson who really got it accomplished, in part by invoking Kennedy’s memory.

Reagan talked about cutting government spending but wasn’t able to accomplish it. Suppose Reagan had been killed and Bush had pushed serious spending cuts through Congress as part of the Reagan legacy?

[Damfino]

@Martini_Enfield

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).

There is a treatment of this in Harry Harrison’s A Transatlantic Tunnel, Hurrah!, where the American Revolution failed and The British American colonies expanded little, respecting the rights of the Native Americans, who became allies. France and Spain still had their footholds on the continent. The World Wars didn’t happen. In 1973, a descendant of I K Brunel plans a railway tunnel under the Atlantic.

[DrDeth]

@MegaBee

I would prevent the siege of Bagdhad in 1258 to save the Grand Library. So much knowledge was lost forever.

More than the Library of Alexandria? (but note that was burned and looted at least 4 times, by Pagans, Christians and Moslems)

[Mnemnosyne]

Alexander the Great doesn’t die by poison/disease (whichever it really was), thus hopefully allowing him to live long enough to properly establish a lasting empire.

[Qin_Shi_Huangdi]

@FriarTed

Does “Having the Council of Nicea allow Christians freedom to keep Kosher, Sabbath & the Hebrew Festivals rather than banning such things, even to believers of Jewish heritage” count?

Well I was mostly trying to avoid disputes over Acts of God here, so doctrinal differences can be used.

@Mnemnosyne

Alexander the Great doesn’t die by poison/disease (whichever it really was), thus hopefully allowing him to live long enough to properly establish a lasting empire.

Alexander the Great was not really different than such conquerors as Napoleon. http://www.livius.org/aj-al/alexander/alexander18.html

Conquerors are by definition destroyers. Alexander ruined his own country, draining its human resources: after his reign, Macedonia never regained its former power. The Persian culture suffered severe blows, too. The destruction of Persepolis served no real military purpose. In Zoroastrian texts, Alexander is called ‘the accursed’, because many people were killed and the religious traditions were in great peril. (It is interesting to note that the ram’s horns that are shown on Alexander’s coins, became an attribute of the Persian god of evil, Ahriman. Later, they were to influence the western iconography of the devil.) It is true, Alexander could show clemency towards Persians and used them as satraps and soldiers (we will return to this point); but he was harsh towards people that were of no military value.

@VinylTurnip

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.

I think the sexual revolutions was more dependent on the Pill than Vietnam. But Nixon would certainly avoid mistakes in the Bay of Pigs and overthrowing Diem in Vietnam and without being seen as inexperienced, Khruschev won’t place missiles on Cuba.

[Bozuit]

@Guinastasia

Because it would’ve been Nixon in Dallas instead of JFK?

Would that be better than 3 years of Kennedy and 5 of Johnson?

I’m guessing the point is not to debate these ideas, I’m just interested.

[Nava]

@Tamerlane

Just as interesting, Miguel de Paz survives to peacefully unite the Iberian peninsula. You’d still have the rivalry with France in Italy, but no bleeding sore to deal with in the Low Countries. Don’t know if an earlier unified Iberia would have fared better, but it certainly would be a bit different.

It still would have been a bloody legal mess, with Navarre invaded and split in half (the northern half under French protection, the southern ruled by Aragon) but still keeping her own laws, four separate legal systems in Castille alone, another half-dozen in Aragon, plus Portugal’s. Singly-ruled, yes: unified, nowhere near.

[Junkman209]

If I could prevent an event, see the change in history, and then undo the change, I would prevent the asteroid impact which created the Chicxulub crater.

[Flyer]

This is pretty trivial compared to a lot of the responses.

I would make sure that Mallory and Irvine successfully climbed Everest and safely returned with pictures.

[Fuji]

@Namkcalb

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.

Or even simpler, I’d be tempted to pick a Byzantine victory at the Battle of Yarmouk.

No idea if today’s world would be better or worse, but it sure would be different.

Another change whose effects would be interesting to see would be a slightly longer lifespan for Ögedei Khan.

[chizzuk]

Tsarevich Alexei gets Empress Alexandra’s other X chromosome and is not born with hemophilia. Rasputin never enters the picture. I have absolutely no clue what this would do to history, since Nicholas II was an imbecile before he came along, but it would be interesting to find out.