# If you wanted to change history as much as possible and... **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [May 2, 2001, 6:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-wanted-to-change-history-as-much-as-possible-and/64051 "2001-05-02T06:07:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Badtz\_Maru](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e36b37/32.png) [@Badtz\_Maru](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Badtz_Maru)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2001, 6:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-wanted-to-change-history-as-much-as-possible-and/64051/1 "2001-05-02T06:07:21Z")
…could send one piece of modern technology back in time 500 years to do so, what would you send? I was thinking about this and it’s a tricky question. Some extremely important pieces of modern technology would have little effect because the people of that time would have no chance of figuring out how it works and how to duplicate it. Right now I’m leaning towards some kind of firearm, maybe a revolver. People would easily understand how it works, and would probably be able to build something based on the idea - though it might be too expensive to make a difference immediatedly, the knowledge would not be lost and people would probably devote a lot of time to making similar weapons. ---
**Author:** ![blur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/dbc845/32.png) [@blur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blur)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2001, 10:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-wanted-to-change-history-as-much-as-possible-and/64051/2 "2001-05-02T10:15:48Z")
I think sending back the technology to can food would have changed history. IIRC, canning was invented during the early 1800’s to help the French army on long campaigns, so the people in the early 1600’s should have been able to do it also. This would help with one of the many problems of exploration, namly running out of food. Imagine how much easier it would have been for the pilgrims when they came over if they could have opened up a can of beef stew instead of having to kill the meat and wait a couple of years for the crops to finally come in. ---
**Author:** ![TPWombat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbce88/32.png) [@TPWombat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TPWombat)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2001, 11:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-wanted-to-change-history-as-much-as-possible-and/64051/3 "2001-05-02T11:46:56Z")
Hmmmm, I seem to recall a machine shop friend of mine raving about the beauty of this IIRC type of lathe that was capable of making all the parts necessary to build an exact replica of itself. Alternatively, how about a simple hand operated printing press? ---
**Author:** ![Sofa\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/58956e/32.png) [@Sofa\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sofa_King)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2001, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-wanted-to-change-history-as-much-as-possible-and/64051/4 "2001-05-02T15:24:32Z")
Imagine what a medical encyclopedia would do. Of course, you would also have to gloss it into Latin. The single concept of boiling water for purification instead of relying on beer and wine would have deep social implications . A few other possibilities: - a punchcard loom; - a wood-fired steam engine; - a Zippo lighter. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2001, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-wanted-to-change-history-as-much-as-possible-and/64051/5 "2001-05-02T15:39:40Z")
I don’t need to go back 500 years. Send a bulletproof vest to the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, avoid World War I, keep the European colonial system intact, keep the U.S. isolationist and avoid the buildup of reprisals against Germany that led to Hitler. ---
**Author:** ![Dignan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f07891/32.png) [@Dignan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dignan)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2001, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-wanted-to-change-history-as-much-as-possible-and/64051/6 "2001-05-02T15:59:14Z")
I’d send a case of penicillin back how ever many hundreds of years and hope that the smart guys could figure it out. I would say that would have a significant impact on history, with all the lives it would save and everything. **kunilou** , I’d be willing to bet that there would still eventually be a large scale war. It’s not like the assasination was the only reason the war started, there were plenty of other factors that played into it. The assasination pretty much sparked what, IMO, was inevitable. ---
**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:** [May 2, 2001, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-wanted-to-change-history-as-much-as-possible-and/64051/7 "2001-05-02T16:28:25Z")
How about sending a nuke back to wherever Columbus was living before he made his pitch to Queen Isabella? Put about a five minute fuse on it. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2001, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-wanted-to-change-history-as-much-as-possible-and/64051/8 "2001-05-02T17:26:13Z")
If we’re stuck with the 500 year time frame, i.e. 1501 A.D., then we need something that can be reproduced in that year, but is advanced enough over what they already had to make a difference. My choice would be a flintlock musket rifled to use Minet balls and equipped with a bayonet. Firearms were familiar enough by then that they would understand the basic concept, it would be simple enough for a smith to reproduce, and it would be the best design they could produce until the early 19th century. They would also have time to adapt their infantry strategies to the 350 meter effective range of a rifled musket, bypassing the whole era of troops blazing away at each other at 80 meters. Canning (or bottling) is an intriguing idea. They _could_ have had it at that time. My only question is if they would have the mental framework to accept it. Without knowledge of microbes, they might not understand why it worked except as a strange form of magic. Plus remember that canning is easy to botch. Improperly sealed or heated cans might not look or smell bad, but can still give you a lethal case of botulism. My guess is that one or two such incidents and people would give up on the idea. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2001, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-wanted-to-change-history-as-much-as-possible-and/64051/9 "2001-05-02T19:02:36Z")
I don’t think that sending cans back or penicillin back will have much of an effect – maybe if you send back the _details_ of what these things are and how they can be produced, you’d be better off. Canning by itself isn’t impressive – people have been putting things in cans and hermetic containers for a LONG time, but it wasn’t until Nicholas Appere (sp?) first thought of HEATING the canned material to preserve it that canning became practical. (This was long before Pasteur and the theory of micro-organisms, so I assume that he either had heard of experiences along these lines, or had experimented himself.) The things that change history can be surprisingly pedestrian. Read L. Sprague de Camp’s classic sf novel **Lest Darkness Fall** , in which Martin Padway finds himself in ancient Rome and attempts to stop its fall. His attempts at gunpowder and telegraphy fall flat, but he finds that his introduction of double-entry bookkeeping, or the printing press, and of distilled liquors are earth-shaking in their effects. In de Camp’s short story “A Gun for Aristotle” (not to be confused with his stories “A Gun for Dinosaur” and “An Elephant for Aristotle”) a time-travelling scientist tries to turn Aristotle’s mind to more practical science, and ends up making a mess of history. Aristotle wasn’t impressed by a gun. So given the choice of things to send back, I’d send a printing press back to an early era. That doesn’t fit in with your 500 year limit, but it’s about the biggest impact simple mechanism I can think of. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Bredin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/96bed5/32.png) [@John\_Bredin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Bredin)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2001, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-wanted-to-change-history-as-much-as-possible-and/64051/10 "2001-05-02T20:06:25Z")
It may not be surprising to those who know I’m a railfan, but I’d send a working steam locomotive circa 1900 to Europe as early as possible; that is, the whole 500 years to 1501. The reason is obvious: rapid transportation is a key invention because it allows rapid communication (post in hours and days instead of days and weeks) and movement of bulk amounts of goods including food and textiles. The boon to trade and travel, at a time before the nation-state idea had solidified so much, **could** result in a more unified Europe. There were steam engines in Europe in the late 1600s, and complex wind, water, and muscle driven machinery long before that. Mines in Germany and elsewhere had huge pumps to keep the mines dry, for instance. [See 's Georgius Agricola’s 1556 “De re Metallica,” which is about mining, not heavy metal bands. 🙂] And, despite their mechanical complexity, there’s nothing about a locomotive that’s not duplicatable if you have enough iron and steel. To ensure that there’s enough steel to build locomotives, rails, etc., I would **happen** to include a detailed but easy-to-understand description of the Bessemer steelmaking process in the appendix to the locomotive’s owner’s manual, which would be written in Latin and left in the cab of the locomotive. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Akatsukami](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ea666f/32.png) [@Akatsukami](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Akatsukami)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2001, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-wanted-to-change-history-as-much-as-possible-and/64051/11 "2001-05-02T20:52:01Z")
I would send a highly-pressurized plastic bottle, filled with cowpox culture, with an easy-to-open top. And I would send it to Cuzco. ---
**Author:** ![Rich\_G7subs](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/85e7bf/32.png) [@Rich\_G7subs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rich_G7subs)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2001, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-wanted-to-change-history-as-much-as-possible-and/64051/12 "2001-05-02T21:21:06Z")
Simple… an extremly accurate clock for use in shipboard navigation.Before the 1700’s navigation was done with an hourglass,so there was no real accurate method of measuring longitude.Ancient sailors would sail along a coastline until they reached the latitude of their destination and sail straight across staying on that latitude.An accurate timepiece would let them sail the shortest course and cut any voyages time and distance nearly in half. ---
**Author:** ![heembo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/f6c823/32.png) [@heembo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/heembo)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2001, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-wanted-to-change-history-as-much-as-possible-and/64051/13 "2001-05-02T22:12:26Z")
I would send back 1,000,000 copies of **"Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus"** Of course this has to be a joke, because no one would be able to read the damn things. However, if they could, imagine the wonders it would do for gender relations… I’d also send back the recipe for **Astro Glide**. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Joe\_Cool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ecb155/32.png) [@Joe\_Cool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joe_Cool)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2001, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-wanted-to-change-history-as-much-as-possible-and/64051/14 "2001-05-03T00:18:58Z")
mostly some pretty interesting posts. For mine, I’d send as thorough information as I could find on Constitutional Law back to the first Constitutional Convention. That way they could see how their ideas were interpreted, changed, intentionally misunderstood, etc, That way they could draft the Bill of Rights accordingly, making the original intent clearer and the language firmer. ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2001, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-wanted-to-change-history-as-much-as-possible-and/64051/15 "2001-05-03T00:30:25Z")
Hot Air Engines are simple, low-tech relatives of steam engines. Less fuel-efficient than steam engines, but easier to build & can use anything burnable for fuel. It doesn’t require constant tending either, & can’t blow up (as a boiler can). Send one each to China, Japan, Korea, Cambodia & Vietnam. ---
**Author:** ![Dignan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f07891/32.png) [@Dignan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dignan)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2001, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-wanted-to-change-history-as-much-as-possible-and/64051/16 "2001-05-03T00:34:46Z")
> [@](#): > > _Joe\_Cool said:_ > I’d send as thorough information as I could find on Constitutional Law back to the first Constitutional Convention. That way they could see how their ideas were interpreted, changed, intentionally misunderstood, etc, That way they could draft the Bill of Rights accordingly, making the original intent clearer and the language firmer. Good idea, I’d send some newspapers and magazines back too so that they could see that the world changes over time. That way they could see that they _should_ leave the laws open to interpretation since the 1700’s will obviously not last forever. Maybe that’s what they should make clear, that those laws aren’t set in stone. That way people won’t intentionally misinterpret the laws that were intended for the 18th century. Of course, I’d probably meet some opposition since most of the newspapers I’d find would have been products of the corrupt liberal media :rolleyes:. ---
**Author:** ![Hometownboy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/5e9695/32.png) [@Hometownboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hometownboy)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2001, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-wanted-to-change-history-as-much-as-possible-and/64051/17 "2001-05-03T00:36:03Z")
I highly recommend tracking down Roger Zelazny’s \*\*The Game of Blood & Dust \*\* for a similar exercise in which two superior entities range through human history making moves to either improve or destroy civilization, It’s in his short story collection “The Last Defender of Camelot.” ---
**Author:** ![Sofa\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/58956e/32.png) [@Sofa\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sofa_King)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2001, 5:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-wanted-to-change-history-as-much-as-possible-and/64051/18 "2001-05-03T05:40:38Z")
What about something really mind-blowing, like a Saturn V, with crawler-pad, with the lunar package aboard? A monument, at first, but increasingly complex as one ascends to the top. With the printing press just kicking in and the relatively long lifetime of the launch vehicle, you can be reasonably assured that mankind has no chance of taking that particular critter anywhere, but has the chance to observe and record what can be done. I imagine a great cathedral being built around it, to hold it up… ---
**Author:** ![slortar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6bbea6/32.png) [@slortar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slortar)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2001, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-wanted-to-change-history-as-much-as-possible-and/64051/19 "2001-05-03T13:02:50Z")
I’d send back a few hundred copies of the Encyclopedia Britannica, to random countries around the world. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2001, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-wanted-to-change-history-as-much-as-possible-and/64051/20 "2001-05-03T16:55:41Z")
1. Things like a steam locomotive or a ship’s chronometer are fine, but you need powered machine tools to duplicate them. Making penicillin is **not** simply a matter of cultivating moldy bread; it required the most advanced technology available in the 1940s to mass produce. 2. Sending back knowledge might be a better plan, but you’re still limited by what the people at the time would be able to accept or make use of. Remember that in the early 16th century people were still being burned at the stake for proposing ideas that the Church considered heretical. Galileo had to overcome the idea that since his telescope was showing things that contradicted the Ptolemic version of astronomy, maybe what it was showing were illusions created by Satan! The magnetic compass was considered sorcery when first introduced to Europe. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-wanted-to-change-history-as-much-as-possible-and/64051.md?page=2)