We invent a past time telephone

[tom]

We invent a phone that can call a number to any telephone in the past that used phone numbers (not operators). You set the time and date, and call the number. Once you set it, time progresses one to one, so to get a year ahead, you gotta wait twelve months. As you change things, the world on the other side of the line will change, but not OTL. Remember, you might have a hard time convincing the other person who you are. It might help a little that tracing your call will seem to be coming from "nowhere".
Who do you call and when?

[Amerigo Vespucci]

Jimmy Carter, right before the Iranian hostage crisis.

[ljofa]

I'd call George Lucas in 1997 and tell him to forget the idea of Jar Jar Binks.

[ljofa]

Oh, and I'd also phone Kaiser Wilhelm and tell him that the Entente powers have a weapon called an atomic bomb and they'll use it unless you call off the troops...

[Michael]

maybe i'd ring my dad "and the winning lotto numbers for the next 2 years are... , winning sports teams are..." and maybe i'd call martin luther king jr and keep him occupied till the guy trying to shoot him goes away, maybe call the central intuituve... i mean intelligence agency and say watch out on the 11th for some really bad pilots, maybe i'd call bell just after he made his first call, just to freak him out :D

[tom]

Mike:
Don't forget the butterflies! Lotto and sports should change pretty quick!

[Grey Wolf]

We invent a phone that can call a number to any telephone in the past that used phone numbers (not operators). You set the time and date, and call the number. Once you set it, time progresses one to one, so to get a year ahead, you gotta wait twelve months. As you change things, the world on the other side of the line will change, but not OTL. Remember, you might have a hard time convincing the other person who you are. It might help a little that tracing your call will seem to be coming from "nowhere".
Who do you call and when?

Hmm, this depends where you are. Your stipulation not to use an operator overlooks that until fairly recently in order to go international, or even in some countries long distance, you had to go through an operator.

Going further back in time, you certainly couldn't make anything more than a local call without an operator, and I very much doubt you could just ring up the Kaiser and say hi !

Also, if it only changes the ATL there's probably not much point helping out your own family in spectacular ways

Grey Wolf

[Grey Wolf]

We invent a phone that can call a number to any telephone in the past that used phone numbers (not operators). You set the time and date, and call the number. Once you set it, time progresses one to one, so to get a year ahead, you gotta wait twelve months. As you change things, the world on the other side of the line will change, but not OTL. Remember, you might have a hard time convincing the other person who you are. It might help a little that tracing your call will seem to be coming from "nowhere".
Who do you call and when?

$%^%$^%$^ it failed my post !

[Michael]

Ok ok i know that i wouldn't be affected but still, why not benefit "myself" pretty selfless in that respect ain't i? ;)
And the guy was saying as long as the kaiser has a phone number you could call hime

[tom]

To make it easier, assume that if a call, even local, can come in by dialing, it "works". Tracing still gives you "huh?"
One thing that will not change is science (I have a BS in Astronomy). I could call some scientist, tell him when the 1987 supernova will occur, or Nova Cygni 1975. That might help convince him. Then high temperature superconductivity, etc.

[Michael]

***BUMP***

[TheLoneAmigo]

Can I access the internet through by a modem? If so, I'm going to email Harry Potter to myself before J.K. Rowling publishes it. I'll be raking in the cash (I don't have anything against J.K. Rowling or Harry Potter, it just seems like the best way to let my past self make lots of money with minimal effort).

[KJM]

As soon as you finished building this phone, you'd get a call from someone in the future begging you to not to go through with this.

[Chris Oakley]

We invent a phone that can call a number to any telephone in the past that used phone numbers (not operators). You set the time and date, and call the number. Once you set it, time progresses one to one, so to get a year ahead, you gotta wait twelve months. As you change things, the world on the other side of the line will change, but not OTL. Remember, you might have a hard time convincing the other person who you are. It might help a little that tracing your call will seem to be coming from "nowhere".
Who do you call and when?

I call the White House interns' office in the fall of '92 and warn them that Monica Lewinsky is trouble on two legs.Then I ring up Hans Blix in August of 2002 and tell him not to believe a single word Saddam Hussein says.

[Adam Parsons]

Could a fax machine be set up on the line too? In that case, I'd start randomly faxing documents to Himmler in 1925 for about a year. After a few months of random electronic squealings coming again and again, he's bound to have a psychotic episode and get locked away where he can't hurt anyone ever again.

Failing that, I'd call in a bomb threat at 7:00 AM to the World Trade Center on 9/11. With any luck, the towers will be empty when the planes hit.

[Chris Oakley]

When you're done with that crosstime fax machine,let me have it for five minutes so I can give the FBI an anonymous tip that a certain Mr.Oswald is plotting to assassinate the President sometime in late November.

[Melvin Loh]

I'd phone Chamberlain and Daladier during the 1938 Munich crisis, to try to persuade em to stand up to Hitler 'cos his forces aren't fully ready for a war, and can be whupped by the Czechs, so's a quick preventive war is necessary, otherwise it's yrs of war and suffering for the entire world...

As an alternative, I'd phone von Stauffenberg right before the July 1944 bombplot, and tell him to pack more explosives into the briefcase then place it in a more prominent location right next to Hitler instead of being under a heavy oak table...

[Archangel Michael]

As an alternative, I'd phone von Stauffenberg right before the July 1944 bombplot, and tell him to pack more explosives into the briefcase then place it in a more prominent location right next to Hitler instead of being under a heavy oak table...

The devil you know is better than the devil you don't know...

I can't believe anybody hasn't thought of this one. In OTL, Pearl Harbor launched a flight of B-17's on the morning of December 7th, 1941. American radar instilattions detected the Japanese aircrafft on December 7th, but the high command thought it was just that flight of B-17's but it wasn't. So I'd call Pearl Harbor, and tell them not to launch that flight of B-17's.

[Chris Oakley]

I'd call the Texas Rangers' GM on Draft Day 1973 and tell him to hold off on David Clyde.