# If you could go back in time and save one person, who would it be? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 9, 2001, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-go-back-in-time-and-save-one-person-who-would-it-be/86212 "2001-10-09T00:02:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![lenin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/3bc359/32.png) [@lenin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lenin)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2001, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-go-back-in-time-and-save-one-person-who-would-it-be/86212/1 "2001-10-09T00:02:18Z")
The spin-off of the “kill one person” thread. The idea being the reverse- If someone in History was killed, somehow incapacitated or stripped of his/her historical status, then you would be able to travel through time and change things just enough to save this person. If possible, illustrate how, assuming you have a time machine and limitless resources, you would go about saving this person. And the standard ground rules… 1. No religious figures. So no second coming of Jesus, or that kind of nonsense. 2. Be sure to include the effects on history of saving this person from their fate. 3. This person must be dead, incapacitated, or stripped of his/her historical importance already. So go ahead and say Ronald Reagan. I dare ya. 4. The person has to be historically important. So once again, your ex-husband is out of the question. 5. In the case of death, the person has to have died for a reason **other** than natural causes. Diseases like Cancer and such will be accepted. So… let’s begin. Yay! ---
**Author:** ![drillrod](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@drillrod](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drillrod)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2001, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-go-back-in-time-and-save-one-person-who-would-it-be/86212/2 "2001-10-09T00:09:00Z")
What if Lincoln hadn’t died? Actually my knowledge of history around the time of his death is inadequate to make any educated guesses. I just figured it’d be a good first response. ---
**Author:** ![ultrafilter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/3d9bf3/32.png) [@ultrafilter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ultrafilter)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2001, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-go-back-in-time-and-save-one-person-who-would-it-be/86212/3 "2001-10-09T00:18:35Z")
I’d save Evariste Galois. He was one of the most brilliant mathematicians who ever lived, and a large part of modern mathematics got its start in his work. He was shot dead in an early morning duel (history has lost the cause), too tired from writing all night trying to record his knowledge. As a sidenote, students in algebra classes are often amused to learn that the inventor of the subject was shot dead the very next day. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Violet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/ebca7d/32.png) [@Violet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Violet)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2001, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-go-back-in-time-and-save-one-person-who-would-it-be/86212/4 "2001-10-09T00:22:59Z")
JFK. Need I say more? ---
**Author:** ![Koxinga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/4af34b/32.png) [@Koxinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Koxinga)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2001, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-go-back-in-time-and-save-one-person-who-would-it-be/86212/5 "2001-10-09T00:31:03Z")
I wonder how things would be different right now if Yitzak Rabin hadn’t been assassinated? ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2001, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-go-back-in-time-and-save-one-person-who-would-it-be/86212/6 "2001-10-09T00:48:26Z")
Crud…I’m torn between Glenn Miller and King Aleksandar of Yugoslavia…and the Romanovs. Glenn Miller-hmmm…history wouldn’t be too much different, I suppose. King Aleksandar-Big one. WWII and Balkan Politics would have been vastly different… Oh geeze… ---
**Author:** ![robby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robby/32/11048_2.png) [@robby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robby)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2001, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-go-back-in-time-and-save-one-person-who-would-it-be/86212/7 "2001-10-09T01:06:34Z")
My grandfather, of course. What a mistake it was shooting him! I’d like to actually be born in this timeline. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2001, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-go-back-in-time-and-save-one-person-who-would-it-be/86212/8 "2001-10-09T02:37:01Z")
I’m such a sselfish bitch, I’d save Keats. Historical effects? Maybe none. But at 26 he was writing stuff as good as Milton or Shakesphere produced in their 30s and 40s. He died of TB, but it was a very preventable death–just have to get someone else to take care of Brother Tom when Brother Tom was dying of TB. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Frink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/977dab/32.png) [@Mr.Frink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Frink)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2001, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-go-back-in-time-and-save-one-person-who-would-it-be/86212/9 "2001-10-09T04:12:05Z")
I’ll have to go with **John Lennon**. More now than Ever – I think his words would help us make sense of the world. ---
**Author:** ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2001, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-go-back-in-time-and-save-one-person-who-would-it-be/86212/10 "2001-10-09T04:29:52Z")
Either Sergei Korolov, the Soviet space program’s chief designer, or Alan Turing, British cryptographer. With Korolov surviving botched heart surgery, assuming that Chaos Theory didn’t rear it’s ugly head and turn the rescue mission into an episode of the “Twilight Zone”, the USSR might have had a good shot at making it to the moon. Not that I have anything against Neil Armstrong, but with luck, a little continued competition from the Ruskies’ might have kept the U.S. program going on to bigger and better things after Apollo. A Mars landing by 1982, maybe? Or maybe Phil Hartman. ☹ Nick Gaston ---
**Author:** ![schplebordnik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/91b2a8/32.png) [@schplebordnik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/schplebordnik)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2001, 5:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-go-back-in-time-and-save-one-person-who-would-it-be/86212/11 "2001-10-09T05:00:49Z")
Edith Keeler. Her humanitarian efforts would have kept the U.S. out of WWII. Sure, that means the Nazis develop the bomb, and ultimately are able to achieve world domination, but the larger aims of peace would have been achieved. And Kirk would have settled down, and she wouldn’t have later wound up marrying Blake Carrington and becoming a major bitch… ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2001, 7:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-go-back-in-time-and-save-one-person-who-would-it-be/86212/12 "2001-10-09T07:49:29Z")
Not a public figure of any importance; not even an adult, but I’d go back and rescue [James Bulger](http://www.crimelibrary.com/classics3/bulger/); thats one untimely death that just should never have happened. (of course, given the choice, there would be others that I’d sort out too) ---
**Author:** ![sirjamesp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@sirjamesp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sirjamesp)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2001, 8:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-go-back-in-time-and-save-one-person-who-would-it-be/86212/13 "2001-10-09T08:19:27Z")
I like **Mangetout** ’s idea of saving James Bulger - but you’re going to have to do something about the lads responsible so that some other poor kid doesn’t get killed instead. And I’m not sure if **schplebordnik** is serious or not about the niceties of Nazi world domination, but I imagine that Jews would have something to say about “the larger aims of peace” if these aims include their genocide. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2001, 10:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-go-back-in-time-and-save-one-person-who-would-it-be/86212/14 "2001-10-09T10:05:40Z")
Matthew Shepard. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2001, 10:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-go-back-in-time-and-save-one-person-who-would-it-be/86212/15 "2001-10-09T10:09:29Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by sirjamesp \* > **I like Mangetout’s idea of saving James Bulger - but you’re going to have to do something about the lads responsible so that some other poor kid doesn’t get killed instead.** I would think that if you caught them _just before_ they did it and chewed them out fairly thoroughly “I **know** all about you” etc., they would crap their pants and live quiet, scared little lives. ---
**Author:** ![ryoushi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/85f322/32.png) [@ryoushi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ryoushi)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2001, 10:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-go-back-in-time-and-save-one-person-who-would-it-be/86212/16 "2001-10-09T10:26:20Z")
I would prevent the death of **Archduke Ferdinand**. I’m not too sure of the consequences of this - how long would it be before the Great War finds another excuse to start? ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2001, 10:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-go-back-in-time-and-save-one-person-who-would-it-be/86212/17 "2001-10-09T10:42:32Z")
There are just too many from which to choose; it would be nice if we could have some sort of mechanism of ‘exchange’, where we remove the good guy and send him home to bed (just before he’s brutally slain) and put a bad guy in his place. ---
**Author:** ![Vinnie\_Virginslayer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/53a042/32.png) [@Vinnie\_Virginslayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Vinnie_Virginslayer)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2001, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-go-back-in-time-and-save-one-person-who-would-it-be/86212/18 "2001-10-09T12:47:00Z")
Good question. And just so people don’t think I’m a ghoul (I started the “kill” thread), I actually can come up with more people to save than to kill! 😃 After reading “The Cold 6000”, RFK comes immediately to mind. I think Vietnam War would have been over a lot sooner, and many American lives would have been saved. No Watergate, and the guy was tough as nails, would have really stood up to the Soviets. It is possible America would have been 10-15 years ahead of where it is now especailly in terms of race relations as a society if he was President from 1969-1977. ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2001, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-go-back-in-time-and-save-one-person-who-would-it-be/86212/19 "2001-10-09T13:06:13Z")
I’d go back in time and save the person that people are going back in time to kill. Dang meddlers! ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2001, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-go-back-in-time-and-save-one-person-who-would-it-be/86212/20 "2001-10-09T13:19:32Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by ryoushi \* > \*\*I would prevent the death of **Archduke Ferdinand**. I’m not too sure of the consequences of this - how long would it be before the Great War finds another excuse to start? \*\* Not long. I think WWI was inevitable and there wasn’t any one thing that could have stopped it. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-go-back-in-time-and-save-one-person-who-would-it-be/86212.md?page=2)