The invention of the personal computer and the
Internet. While it’s too early to judge, I
think it’s already changed the world.
The creation of the Straight Dope - the first step in eliminating ignorance.
My birth. Of course, this 666 birthmark is pretty conspicuous.
Even though I do have to give a nod to the printing press, as it is very important, I have another thing that helped change the world…
Navigation/Map Making. Without it, the New World would never have been discovered. The Crusades would have never happened. The Romans would have stayed in Rome, just hanging out having orgies and banquets.
Come to think of it, I wouldn’t mind going back to Roman times… 
Without a doubt, the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo, otherwise we would all be speaking French.
The fact that Lincoln was president during the American Civil War. I really believe that if he wasn’t, we would’ve fell. The guy was a damn genius.
I’ve posted it before elsewhere, and I’ll post it again: The most influential event is when someone had the brilliant idea to hide Jesus’ body.
What is Gutenburg best know for having printed?
Dinsdale
A Bible or specifically the Gutenburg Bible.
While I have to disagree with the whole single event/cause idea, I would cast my vote in favor of either the harnessing of fire or the invention of the wheel.
Without fire you could not make your printing press. It is the catalyst to most of the changes we have seen throughout history. Bronze Age, Iron Age etc…
The usefulness of the wheel is self explanatory.
That black monolith landing on Earth.
Okay, seriously, I’ll have to go with the harnessing of fire. Modern technology pretty much hinges upon that.
I feel the need to point out that the printing press existed in China for centuries before Gutenberg, ahem, “invented” it. At least that’s what we were taught in Eastern Rel.
No one’s mentioned it so let me be wildly controversial: whoever came up with the crazy idea of The Wheel
oops, sorry Sledman - 3.30 am and the bottle’s empty.
Not sure this is really an “event” as such. But the developement of language allowed people to understand each other. Instead of just grunting at each other.
Jayron, Jayron, Jayron.
(kinda like Dr. Zorba saying “Ben Casey, Ben Casey, Ben Casey”)
Ya really like Burke?
Then the invention of the printing press was the second most important thing that changed civilization.
Right after the plow.
In Western history, at least, I would have to go with the schism between Catholicism and Protestantism. In addition to propagating the idea of individualism which dominates modern Western culture, it also got the Catholic Church to get its collective act together, making sure that it did not fall from importance as a political entity (see the big deal when the Pope goes to Cuba for example)
How about a fellow who tried out for the Washington Senators way back about 40 years ago but didn’t make the cut?
We know this man as Fidel Castro.
Also, what if Washington hadn’t caught the Hessian mercenaries by surprise? This country might still be New England or whatever if not for that monumental rebel victory.
We were lucky that Napoleon had wars to pay for, and was sure he couldn’t hold conquered Spanish American territory.
Had he been less certain, or less needy, or less greedy, so much would have changed. Or if Jefferson had waited for longer formal congressonal debates.
That was one time the scales could easily have tipped on the basis of a single diplomatic gaffe.
The victory of Alexander the Great over the Persians. This is the single event which ensured the ultimate ascendancy of Western culture. If the Persians had won, Greece would have been conquered and absorbed, there would have been no subsequent Roman Empire (with all of its myriad influences on Western civilization) and we might all be a part of some sort of Greater Iran today.
15,000,000,000 B.C. (approx. date) – The Big Bang misfires, the vaccuum fluctuation eats itself instead of expanding.
Well…
There are so many positive events to choose from that it is very difficult to make a choice. However, I believe that I can make a choice on what the single event that has hindered the advancement of civilization…
**The Birth of Aristotle**
You heard me. Seriously, Aristotle was a great philosopher, and he deserved most of the respect that he got. Problem is he was too influential. Just think, if Aristotle hadn’t come up with the notion of the perfect spheres of the cosmos, then Ptolemy and Brahe and a host of other astronomers wouldn’t have spent so much time trying to prove him right.
As it stands, Aristotle was revered by many of the great minds that followed him. They thought that a man who was right about so many things could not be wrong about his system of celestial mechanics. Until Galileo and to a lesser extent Copernicus came along, all scientists worked with a improper cosmic model.
Aristotle’s cosmology held back the advance of science by a thousand years.