If you could kill any historical figure, who would you kill?

[Hogfather65]

Adam or Eve - just because…

[Zeldar]

@Hogfather65

Adam or Eve - just because…

The snake

[Namkcalb]

@Hogfather65

Adam or Eve - just because…

Adam is mythological not historical, and so is the biblical Eve.

If you wanted to go for greatest impact, perhaps zapping “Mitochondrial Eve” would be best.

[madsircool]

@Farmer_Jane

Christianity is the worst thing to happen to Judaism. Madonna and her stupid red strings probably gets second place.

I would argue that the Nazis and the Romans were the worst thing to have happened to Judaism.

[madsircool]

@The_Second_Stone

Ronald Reagan after his last child was born, but before he was governor of California, so it will fit in the rules. He had a horrible influence on American and world politics. What a tool.

Oh yeah..helping bring down the Soviet Union was just horrible.

[Jragon]

Alexander the Great, all things considered the Persian Empire was a pretty cool place. I’m sure it would have gotten bumped off the map eventually, but I want to see where things would go.

[madsircool]

@2ManyTacos

Somebody else would have inevitably discovered the Americas for the Europeans, but taking out Columbus might have given the natives another century or two of peace before being decimated by the Westerners.

A century or two of peace? Really? Do you know anything about the history of the Americas before Columbus?

[Kobal2]

Thomas Edison. I don’t want to save the world or nothing, but the guy was a dick.

[QUOTE=Little Nemo]
And not just theoretically - a lot of people quite seriously blamed the Christians when the Visigoths sacked Rome in 410. They said the barbarians were a punishment sent by the gods for abandoning them.
[/QUOTE]

Huh. I didn’t know Jerry Falwell was *that *old.

[MrDibble]

@The_Man_With_The_Golden_Gun

Can we knock off Abraham? That would through a wrench in the works. No Judaism, no Christianity, no Islam, and a few smaller religions would probably be out as well. I’m not even sure if monotheism would have ever gotten started.

Nothing against the Abrahamic religions, but it would be interesting to see just how drastically this changes things.

Actually, if you believe any of those people existed (I don’t) Moses would be the better bottleneck, I think. Get him while he’s floating in the basket…

I am, of course, an absolute pacifist, but I’ll play along - William of Normandy, fairly early in life.

[MrDibble]

@Namkcalb

If you wanted to go for greatest impact, perhaps zapping “Mitochondrial Eve” would be best.

Most Recent Common Ancestor doesn’t really work that way…

[dngnb8]

Lee Harvey Oswald

[RTFirefly]

@Guinastasia

How about Jack Ruby? Then Oswald WOULD have gone to trial and we might not have so many goddamned JFK conspiracy nuts.

Nah, because then I don’t get this great t-shirt with the Lee Harvey Oswald Band on it.

[puddleglum]

Engels or Marx. Without Engels Marx would have had to get a job and would not have been able to write what we did. If Marx had not been around Engels could have written the stuff himself and probably done a better job. Without Engels communism does not get created. So no Mussolini, no Lenin, no Trotsky, no Stalin, no Beria, no Mao, no Pol Pot, no Kim Il Sung, no Castro, no Mengistu. Without Lenin WW1 ends differently and Hitler probably never takes power and WW2 never happens. Hundreds of millions of people saved.

[TruCelt]

I would try to trace back to - and wipe out - the first progenitor of the “Warrior Gene.” This could take care of pretty much everyone listed above.

[robert_columbia]

@Little_Nemo

…
And without a single strong central authority like Constantine created, there wouldn’t have been any institution that could have promoted Christianity like he did. Other rulers would have made the same proclamations he made but those proclamations would have only affected a regional kingdom rather than a major empire. Only a Roman Emperor was in a postion to make a proclamation that had an effect over millions of people on three continents.

I’ll certainly concede that Constantine wasn’t successful in his attempts to establish a single official Christianity. But he did establish the principle of trying to do that. After Constantine, rival theologians no longer disputed their differences through debate. They instead worked on convincing political leaders to advance their theological position by force.

He did succeed in establishing an official Christianity that lasted for a few hundred years as a coherent entity. Today, there are several faiths that claim to be the one faithful remnant of Constantine’s church (two of the biggest ones being the Roman Catholic Churcuh and the Eastern Orthodox churches), as well as several reform movements that claim that Constantine’s church was correct in the beginning but fell into heresy and needed to be reformed, including many Lutheran traditions and I believe the Church of England as well. Some, such as Mormons and many Baptists believe that Constantine’s church was itself a heretical corruption/perversion of the Christian faith.

[D_Odds]

@2ManyTacos

Surprised nobody said him yet: Christopher Columbus

Somebody else would have inevitably discovered the Americas for the Europeans, but taking out Columbus might have given the natives another century or two of peace before being decimated by the Westerners. I look back on world history today and I still think that the tale of the indiginous population of North & South America is one of the biggest travesties of human history.

This was my first thought too. Columbus should be treated as a war criminal, not a pioneer and hero, for his actions (and I’m not talking about bringing smallpox to a vulnerable population). Sadly, it would not have changed things. One of the purported reasons Isabella funded Columbus is that other nations were looking at making the same journey, and the Spanish wanted to be first. The American continent might have had another 10-15 years, at best, before another European landed, likely with little difference to the long term outcome.

The history of the native American populations is a travesty, but short of sinking every westward bound ship leaving Europe from 1492 to present, it was inevitable. There was no way to stop the European war machine, especially with smallpox destroying everything before them.

[Siam_Sam]

@RTFirefly

Nah, because then I don’t get this great t-shirt with the Lee Harvey Oswald Band on it.

Or those T-shirts featuring the band the Dead Kennedys.

[Namkcalb]

@The_Second_Stone

Ronald Reagan after his last child was born, but before he was governor of California, so it will fit in the rules. He had a horrible influence on American and world politics. What a tool.

The OP explicitly prohibits killing Jesus

[Namkcalb]

@puddleglum

Engels or Marx. Without Engels Marx would have had to get a job and would not have been able to write what we did. If Marx had not been around Engels could have written the stuff himself and probably done a better job. Without Engels communism does not get created. So no Mussolini, no Lenin, no Trotsky, no Stalin, no Beria, no Mao, no Pol Pot, no Kim Il Sung, no Castro, no Mengistu. Without Lenin WW1 ends differently and Hitler probably never takes power and WW2 never happens. Hundreds of millions of people saved.

But didn’t Marx’s writings helped grow the moderate Socialist movement, and the Communist revolutions encouraged powerbrokers in other countries to take workers’ grievances seriously

@TruCelt

I would try to trace back to - and wipe out - the first progenitor of the “Warrior Gene.” This could take care of pretty much everyone listed above.

Good idea…

@D_Odds

The history of the native American populations is a travesty, but short of sinking every westward bound ship leaving Europe from 1492 to present, it was inevitable. There was no way to stop the European war machine, especially with smallpox destroying everything before them.

Yes… Great people may be most visable, but removing them won’t stop the trend they rose on.
Icing Constantine wouldn’t have stopped presure towards the dominance of Christianity and killing Columbus wouldn’t stop all the other explorers hoping to achieve the very same thing.

[Boyo_Jim]

@Namkcalb

The OP explicitly prohibits killing Jesus

Reagan was Jesus’s stunt double.