A single life, removing one person from history!

Stephen

Banned
No Cristopher Columbas or Amerigo Vespuci leads to the American continent being called Cabotia or Atlantis.
 
Was reading about another subject and his name was mentioned I then Googled it and found his conection with B-P. The POD could be the Pleasant Valley War.

Or (which is closer to the "remove from history" in the OP) during the Dakota War (perhaps I'm relying too much on Wikipedia here).
 

Redbeard

Banned
The further we go back the more any person would have a chance of decisively influencing present events, making this just a matter of going back long enough.

But perhaps we could "sharpen" the question to which person, acting as late in 19th century as possible did have the greatest personal influence on events in 20th and 21st century?

For this "title" I would suggest Otto von Bismarck, as it is difficult to see a strong unified Germany without his personal handling of Prussian and German diplomacy, and without the strong unified Germany no WWI or WWII etc. Kaiser Wilhelm sacked Bismarck in 1890, and hereby founded the period of stupid German diplomacy, but without Bismarck's creation of the Second Empire, Wilhelm would just have been a silly King of Prussia and whether his diplomacy was smart or stupid of limited consequences.

Another bid could be the French officer in commnad at Fashoda in 1898. If he had been repleced by a more hotheaded colleague we might have had an Anglo-French colonial war by 1898 and France being alone vs. Germany a few years later.

Regards

Steffen Redbeard
 
:confused: The Pleasant Valley War was real. :confused:
Wiki it.

Sorry. What I meant was that Burnham was a toddler during the Dakota War and was (according to Wikipedia) in the middle of the war and lucky to escape with his life. In the Pleasant Valley War he was a participant. My point was that if Burnham were to die as a young child it would be closer to the OP of "remove from history."
 
Religous
St Paul (Christianity would not of caught on)
Prophet Muhammad (Asian european interaction totally changed)
Martin Luther (different reformation)

Scietific
Johann Guttenburg (delay of mass publications)
Alfred Nobel
Thomas Edison

Politiacal
Bismarck
Napolean (standardisation)
Charlemagne
 
I don't know about removing, but I wouldn't mind going back three million years, find Lucy, slap her, and tell her to 'get back up in that tree'.

Grandfather paradox, much?

I think a good one is the person who invented writing. Now we are stuck in prehistory.

Not to be an spoilsport, but writing wasn't invented by 1 person, but it was created by several hundreds (even thousands) of people, working for hundred of years, in several different countries, and also to manage to get people to realise that each symbol used in writing has an abstract meaning.

Christopher Columbus

I think it would have taken at least another hundred years before some other crazy guy tried sailing for India with the risk of falling off the end of the Earth. even if it was like 20 years, Spain would not always get to the New World first. What if the English found Mexico city first? It would be named like Mays City after a while, if even taken by anybody.
Mistake in here: the reason why Columbus was derided for his plan to reach India going towards the west wasn't because people believe Earth was flat, but because Columbus' measurement of the distance between Europe and Asia going that way was way smaller than the real deal, and the scientists knew that (hey, the Greeks already knew that the Earth was round!). If anything, Columbus was quite lucky that America was in the middle (and nearly at a same distance at what he said Asia was), otherwise the sailors that had travelled with him would have died for sure.

As for my opinions:
Asia: Genghis Khan (without him, the chances of Chinese inventions reaching Europe, such as gunpowder or paper, would have been quite slim; and it was under the mongols that the Silk Route was made secure), Qin Shi Huangdi (or however the first Chinese Emperor was called),
Europe: Augustus (no Roman Empire, thus a huge change in the future of the world), Hitler (was born before 1900, his decisions started a war that killed more than 50 million people), Napoleon (the Napoleonic Wars shaped the whole continent, one way or other, and the invasion of Spain sparked the end of the Spanish Empire), Ángel Castro y Argiz (no Ángel, no Castro brothers and probably no successful Cuban revolution).
America: George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson
 
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Let's see, for the far East, the removal of the Dowager Empress Cixi, Xiao Sheng, would result in a vastly different China, with effects that would reach to the Western world.

The absence of Queen Victoria would result in a totally unrecognizable British Empire, but Benjamin Disraeli works as well.

In America, Teddy Roosevelt's absence would change America's involvement on the world stage, but removing either Thomas Edison or Nicola Tesla would result in a very different world.

Add Marconi, Farnsworth, or Baird, and it is unlikely broadcasting would develop in the same way. (yes, I do mean if just one of any of them vanished from history, btw.)

I think that the closer to 1900 you get, the less likely for the greater changes to be a world leader, and more likely to be someone who contributed to modern technology in som major way.
 
Grandfather paradox, much?



Not to be an spoilsport, but writing wasn't invented by 1 person, but it was created by several hundreds (even thousands) of people, working for hundred of years, in several different countries, and also to manage to get people to realise that each symbol used in writing has an abstract meaning.


Mistake in here: the reason why Columbus was derided for his plan to reach India going towards the west wasn't because people believe Earth was flat, but because Columbus' measurement of the distance between Europe and Asia going that way was way smaller than the real deal, and the scientists knew that (hey, the Greeks already knew that the Earth was round!). If anything, Columbus was quite lucky that America was in the middle (and nearly at a same distance at what he said Asia was), otherwise the sailors that had travelled with him would have died for sure.

As for my opinions:
Asia: Genghis Khan (without him, the chances of Chinese inventions reaching Europe, such as gunpowder or paper, would have been quite slim; and it was under the mongols that the Silk Route was made secure), Qin Shi Huangdi (or however the first Chinese Emperor was called),
Europe: Augustus (no Roman Empire, thus a huge change in the future of the world), Hitler (was born before 1900, his decisions started a war that killed more than 50 million people), Napoleon (the Napoleonic Wars shaped the whole continent, one way or other, and the invasion of Spain sparked the end of the Spanish Empire), Ángel Castro y Argiz (no Ángel, no Castro brothers and probably no successful Cuban revolution).
America: George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson
Then remove who ever came up with the idea of paper!
 
My take would be

Genghis Khan
Mohammad Ghori/Ghazni
Robert Clive

If i could butterfly off religious figures

Gauthama Buddha
Jesus
Mohammad
 
What person in history (pre-1900) if removed would most likely
alter the look of our world today.


BULLNECK.

ie: Constantine the Great Fascist supreme imperial mafia thug
and military supremacist. (died c.337 CE - poisoned by his bothers
on account of the savage execution of his son Crispus c.326 CE)
 
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