How much do you know about time traveling, Pandas? I’m going to admit: my knowledge is pretty much limited to the possibility that Keanu Reeves is either a vampire or a time traveler from the 1500s.
But others know much more about time traveling, and even believe in it. In fact, a 2021 poll shows that 39% of Americans think time traveling will one day be possible. If given the opportunity, 53% would travel to the future, and 40% would prefer to go back into the past.
Yet some people already speculate that time traveling is possible. When they look at some historical events, a time traveler seems to be the only logical explanation. We came across an online thread where people were sharing their most bonkers time traveler theories, prompted by one netizen asking: “What historical event 100% reads like a Time Traveler went back in time to alter history?” And we present to you the wildest ones below!
#1
The Russian writer Fyodor Dostoevsky was sentenced to death by firing squad and just as they were preparing the groups to be shot, a messenger came with a letter from the Tsar “forgiving” them and the sentence was changed to prison labor. He later went on to write some of the most influential novels of all time.
Image source: smokeyman992, Google Arts & Culture
#2
Cyanide Gas Attack Thwarted in Tokyo Subway.
20,000 people could have died but a worker found a burning gas bag in a toilet just before it mixed with another poisonous another gas bag – just in time – and put them out. That was in Shinjuku station. I was in that station that day, and that person might have saved my life.
Probably not time travel – but very good timing.
Image source: Idkeepplaying, Council on Foreign Relations
#3
The number of times we DIDN’T go to nuclear war because of a false positive of a launch.
Honestly Stanislav Petrov should have statues in every country.
Phosphoron:
Stanislav Petrov was a Soviet lieutenant known as “the man who saved the world.” Tensions were riding between the Soviet Union and the United States, so on the 26th of September in 1983, he was on duty for a nuclear early-warning system. The system detected multiple missiles launched by the United States, but Petrov broke protocol, following his instincts by choosing not to report the danger to his higher-ups. The missiles turned out to be a false alarm, as he had thought, and, as Petrov’s title suggests, he very well may have saved the world that day. Saving the world just off of a hunch definitely seems like something a time traveler might do… Sus.
egaustex:
Stanislov Petrov traveled back from a post nuclear apocalyptic future to establish the current timeline.
Image source: AustinJG, Queery-54
#4
Franz Ferdinand’s assassination. It was so much happenstance, shenanigans, and tomfoolery that it’s like a special achievement in a hitman game.
Wadsworth_McStumpy:
The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand.
Somebody throws a grenade at his car, and it blows up behind him. That’s the first incident of time travel, stopping the assassination. Later, as he goes back, the driver realizes that he’s on the same route where the grenade was thrown, and they try to turn around. The whole procession of cars stalls, and a guy who just happened to be sitting there, goes over and shoots him. That’s a second time traveler, fixing what the first had done.
Since the whole thing lit off WWI and led to the rise of Hitler and then WWII, I kind of wonder what Ferdinand would have started if he hadn’t been k**led. It must have been pretty bad for them to send a second time traveler to put N*zi Germany back into the timeline.
anonymous:
Archduke Franz Ferdinand bleeding out from an assassin because the suit he had been sewn into for the perfect fit couldn’t easily be cut off him fast enough to stop the bleeding. Cue WWI.
Image source: RigasTelRuun, Ferdinand Schmutzer – Österreichische Nationalbibliothek
#5
Mendeleev, who created the periodic table, was struggling to order the elements in a specific order/pattern. He then was able to order them like we see today after having a ‘dream’ where all the elements fell into place, even leaving gaps for elements that hadn’t yet been discovered.
I know it’s not exactly a major historical event, but it’s been the foundation of science for over a century but when I first heard I thought it was a bit suspicious how it all fell into place.
Image source: willmac28, David Morgan-Mar/flickr
#6
The commando raid on the NorskHydro heavy water plant in Hardanger Norway during WWII, the Norwegian commandos parachuted in during one of the worst blizzards on record, along with hundreds of pounds of explosives, and had to trek through the Norwegian wilderness for 15 days before they found a hunting cabin. The English commandos who were supposed to link up with got shot down, and the only reason they were able to make it to the cabin was that they found one of the commandos sled, which he had lost as a child. After that they had to hole up in the hunting cabin for months, waiting out the weather. They survived on moss until. On Christmas morning, one of the men managed to shoot a deer.
They went on to destroy the heavy water plant as well as sink the ship carrying what heavy water had been produced, effectively ending any chance N**i Germany had of developing atomic weapons.
The story is even crazier and less plausible than I’ve described, but I’m on mobile so I’ve left some things out.
Image source: Gentleman_Viking
#7
Leonardo de Vinci. He could have been trying to get attention of other time travelers saying hey I’m stuck back here.
Jakkzzyy:
Da Vinci. The mad man designed a tank in the 1500s.
Travel_Jellyfish_5:
I can believe this. He’s like a modern dude trying to reverse engineer things he’s used to seeing in a bid to remain sane.
Image source: Fickle_Penguin, Leonardo da Vinci
#8
Edgar Allen Poe writes about an event 40+ years in the future.
Basically, Poe writes about four people who are starving at sea, draw straws, and k**l and eat the loser, cabin boy Richard Parker. 40 odd years later four people are adrift at sea in a lifeboat, one drinks seawater and goes into a coma. When they draw straws for who will be eaten, the coma guy gets the short straw in a development that surprises no one. And so the three other men k**l and eat the cabin boy. Richard Parker. Seriously.
Image source: TuckerMouse, Samuel Stillman Osgood
#9
Just whoever has been working in The Simpsons writers room.
anonymous:
I read a theory somewhere that this has essentially happened because The Simpsons has had 706 episodes as of today, and with that many episodes multiplied by the fact that each episode usually has at least 2 plots running- that’s over 1400 different storylines. With the style of their show being satirical, it’s just bound that they were going to predict some things along the way.
But yeah, employing a time traveler on the writing team probably helps too.
Image source: Stonesword75, FOX
#10
Jimmy Page moved with his parents to Miles Road, Epsom at Surrey. When they enter on their new house, there was only one thing inside: an acoustic guitar. Jimmy Page was 12yo by this time. To those who don’t know, Jimmy became one of the greatest guitarists of all time.
Image source: joaaoluucas, Andrew Smith/flickr
#11
Joan of Arc. So I am Christian but for this I’m gonna stick solely to historical facts and not faith. Joan of Arc just always felt to me like altered wacko history. This peasant girl who grew up an orphan, never had any military training, could barely read or write, manages to literally decimate one of the finest fighting forces the world has ever seen simply due to her believing God would protect her.
However that’s not even the craziest part of her story. The craziest part is she managed to convince Charles of Valois to give her an army to battle the English AND HE DID. Like imagine if a 5’3 girl from the poorest neighborhood in the US who can barely read or write goes to the president and asks him to give her command of our military to fight in a war and he just agrees.
Then on top of that she manages to win a major battle that turns the tide of a war that’s lasted already a century. It’s almost like a time traveler posed as a peasant girl and won the war. It’s always felt super bizarre to me.
Image source: BoredRedditor25
#12
When Andrew Jackson’s assassin attempted to shoot him, both of his flint lock pistols misfired. Andrew Jackson had to be restrained after almost beating the assassin to death with his cane. The two flintlocks were examined after the incident and found to be in good condition.
Image source: Two_Bears_HighFiving, Ralph Eleaser Whiteside Earl
#13
There was a shipwreck in 1664, a shipwreck in 1785, and a shipwreck in 1820. Each had 1 survivor. Each survivor was named Hugh Wiliams.
Image source: pm_me_gnus, Ishan @seefromthesky/unsplash
#14
Tsutomu Yamaguchi
Survived both the bombings at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Reads like a satirical time-traveler story where the protagonist screws up his dates.
Image source: anon, Twice Bombed: The Legacy of Yamaguchi Tsutomu
#15
I would say there is significant evidence Fidel Castro.
Every single assassination attempt failed, sometimes because of wildly miscellaneous circumstances, including a sabotaged diving suit that somehow got “miraculously switched” with someone else, who ended up drowning in his place.
Dude holds the world record for over 600 attempts, I believe.
Image source: Demiscio8, Paul-Henri Talbot
#16
Tesla’s AC Polyphase System. One minute, we’re in the stone age of electrical distribution, and the next, Buffalo, NY is being powered by the Alternating Current being generated at Niagra Falls by Telsa’s genius system.
Image source: randyfromm
#17
**NIKOLA F****N TESLA.** Earth was going to be torn apart by a rogue black hole, so Nikola came back to a time when he could get the materials to build a death ray/save the earth ray, but wouldn’t have to answer to anyone about building it. He then shot it right through the earth creating the Tunguska Event which altered the path of the black hole. We all lived. He went mad and died because he couldn’t go back to his present. God, no wonder he was such a clean fetishist. Imagine if you had to go back and live in 1908, before antibiotics and the FDA.
Image source: The_Patriot, Napoleon Sarony
#18
The American Civil Wars first real battle was at Bull Run on land belonging to a Mr. McLean. After that he said “Screw this, Ima move to the country and avoid this war”. He moved to Appomattox Courthouse, VA where Lee surrendered to Grant…in the McLean’s living room.
Image source: rgrtom, Unknown author – Appomattox Court House National Historical Park
#19
I’ve gone through quite a few comments but haven’t seen the random dude trading stocks.
That has to be the biggest “Time traveller” story though not necessarily altering history in a obvious way.
Will need to try find what the guy called himself. Basically random dude who no-one has ever heard of arrives in NYC and starts buying shares in a market slump. Makes money on every single trade. Share price is falling, he buys it, just after he buys it, it starts rising, he sells as it turns and drops.
But he’s doing that across the whole share market. Insider trading is suspected but he’s not making or taking phone calls and there’s no way he’s got an in on seemingly everything. Also no-one knows who he is, literally no-one has ever met this guy before.
Makes a c**p load of money in very little time, gets arrested on suspicion of fraud because no-one is that lucky. Says something along the lines of, “I know I shouldn’t have done that but I got carried away with all the excitement.” Bail is set at IIRC $1m, which is immediately paid by another guy no-one has ever heard of.
They both leave and poof. No records of either of them existing prior to the trading or bailout. They’re just gone, search is conducted and it comes up with nothing.
Image source: TAOJeff
#20
The Germans spent a lot of time and money developing a magnetic sea mine that probably would have significantly reduced England’s ability to stay in the war, except they dropped a single one of the mines accidentally on an English beach, and also failed to arm it so none of the booby traps were active and the British basically found out straight away how it worked and we’re able to cheaply build magnetic mine sweepers.
Image source: anon
#21
Isaac Newton discovered calculus, the laws of motion, and the fundamentals of optics all by himself.
A time traveler must have paid him a visit.
Image source: sd_glokta, Godfrey Kneller
#22
Albert Einstein for sure. Man fleshed out theory’s that provided several pillars of physics that can’t be disproven today, despite many tries. As we learn more, we just see how right he was. How did he understand and predict things 120+ years later?
Image source: Katavallos
#23
If the time traveler can control weather, the “divine wind” that stopped the Mongol invasion of Japan.
Image source: snoweel
#24
I have an older one.
Sometime between 200BC – 100 AD. the Ancient Greeks had invented a early prototype steam engine (Aeolipile). But they really didn’t give it much further thought. The Ancient Greeks were clever, but somehow, no one seemed to realize the potential of this invention. It never developed beyond being more than just a curiosity.
Had these Ancient Greek designs been more widespread. There is a good chance the industrial revolution could have happened 1,500 years earlier.
But honestly, it seemed like someone was intervening to prevent these designs from being disseminated.
Image source: bd_magic
#25
Digby Tatham Warter.
Digby and A Company managed to travel 8 miles in 7 hours while also taking prisoner 150 German soldiers including members of the SS. During the battle, Digby wore his maroon beret instead of a helmet and waved his umbrella while walking about the defences despite heavy mortar fire. When the Germans started using tanks to cross the bridge, Digby led a bayonet charge against them wearing a bowler hat. He later disabled a German armoured car with his umbrella, incapacitating the driver by shoving the umbrella through the car’s observational slit and poking the driver in the eye.
Digby then noticed the chaplain pinned down by enemy fire while trying to cross the street to get to injured soldiers. Digby got to him and said “Don’t worry about the bullets, I’ve got an umbrella”. He then escorted the chaplain across the street under his umbrella. When he returned to the front line, one of his fellow officers said about his umbrella that “that thing won’t do you any good”, to which Digby replied “Oh my goodness Pat, but what if it rains?”
Image source: seanbear
#26
Julian the apostate, a Roman emperor from the 4th century that tried to reverse back from Christianity to paganism, which is exactly what a time traveler Roman weebo would do. Also, there is the famous incident of his death, which was caused by a spear injury in a battle, which he took because he forgot to put on his breastplate before the battle started. Something clearly done by a time traveler who is not familiar with the world around him/a time traveler trying to conceal his journey back to his own time.
Nothing can convince me that he was not.
Image source: nerodidntdoit, Classical Numismatic Group, Inc
#27
I am almost certain Gemistus Pletho (1355-1454) was a time traveler. Never heard of the man? Hear me out: He lived in the last decades of the dying Byzantine Empire, besieged by the rising Turks and the merchants of Venice alike. In a time when most clung to the bible, he advocated for a return to the pagan Gods of Antiquity (Zeus, Hades, Poseidon etc.). While he believed that monks were wasting everyone’s time he was an important emissary to Italy to end the centuries-long schism between Orthodox and Catholic Christians. While he was there he kickstarted the Renaissance by re-introducing Plato to the West who had been virtually unknown for a millennium and convinced Cosimo de Medici to found the Platonic Academy. He also tried to introduce reforms that would have transformed Byzantium (which still held onto the claim to be the sole heir of the Roman Empire) into a Greek nation-state.
He proposed “a new constitution of strongly centralized monarchy advised by a small body of middle-class educated men. The army must be composed only of professional native Greek soldiers, who would be supported by the taxpayers, or “Helots” who would be exempt from military service. Land was to be publicly owned, and a third of all produce given to the state fund; incentives would be given for cultivating virgin land. Trade would be regulated and the use of coinage limited, barter instead being encouraged; locally available products would be supported over imports. Mutilation as a punishment would be abolished, and chain gangs introduced.” (source Wikipedia)
His biography reads like a 21th century person getting thrown into the chaotic 15th century and trying to somehow introduce modernity. That he was ignored by the Emperor and largely failed supports my long held belief that most of us would be pretty useless political advisers if we where to time travel.
Image source: anon
#28
Satoshi Nakamoto.
He came out of nowhere, invented bitcoin, and then disappeared. Easiest trillion-dollar play.
Image source: anon, Channel 4 News
#29
When the Athenians voted to execute a large group of war prisoners during the Peloponnesian wars, many of those prisoners women and children, an entire city, a man whom nobody knew or heard of took the stage. His name was Diadotus, literally “gift of god”. He persuaded the Athenian people to reverse their decision, which they did. Before the messenger reached the soldiers to order them to k**l the prisoners, another messenger had reached them in time to inform the commander that the Athenians had changed their mind and let them live.
Image source: LDM123
#30
Nigel Farage’s plane crash in 2010 feels, in retrospect, like it could have been a pro-EU time traveller’s attempt to pre-empt Brexit.
Image source: anon
#31
Edgar Sengier. He stockpiled uranium in New York – which just happened to be where it was needed, when it was needed, for the Manhattan project to build the bombs they dropped on Japan.
Image source: slower-is-faster, Atomic Heritage Foundation
#32
Emperor Barbarossa amassing a colossal Crusader army of HRE troops for the crusades and beginning to March towards the holy land, then slipping off his horse and drowning, at which point the entire 100,000 strong force turned around and went home.
Who knows if it would’ve changed the course of the Crusades, but it definitely screams “Uhhhh did we try knocking him off the horse?” By a time travel team.
Image source: Ferelar
#33
J.R.R. Tolkien died in 1973, which is quite a curiosity considering a little rhyme he wrote once. How did that go?
‘Three for the Elf Lords under the sky,
Seven for the dwarves in their halls of stone,
Nine for mortal men doomed to die,
One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne.’
It’s either a time traveler, God having a sense of humor, or we’re all living in a simulation and that’s an Easter Egg.
Image source: glory_of_dawn
#34
If you wanted to go back in time to try and destroy the world with a one-two punch, you could hardly do better than Thomas Midgely, Jr. He was the guy that invented both highly toxic leaded gasoline and ozone-destroying Freon.
Image source: moodpecker
#35
During the war of 1812, seems like a time traveler with weather control capabilities started a freak tornado that effectively ended the British occupation of Washington.
“More British soldiers were k**led by the tornado’s flying debris than by the guns of the American resistance.”
Image source: Zeppekki
#36
A book that predicted the sinking of the Titanic.
Futility: The Wreck of the Titan.
Image source: sekscat
#37
A minor revolt in Germania led to an overwhelming show of force. Governor Publius Quincitilius Varus marched Legions XVII, XVIII and XVIIII (XIX is historically inaccurate), Rome’s finest fighting force. He had enough force to pacify every fighting man in the entire of Germania.
Then, some time traveller replaced Varus and had him remove every advantage the world’s most powerful army had, he crushed their discipline, quashed their organisation, had them strolling along with merchants, whores, families, though narrow forest trails while being led by an agent of the enemy who Varus had no reason whatsoever to trust.
Publius Quincitilius Varus was not an idiot, he was an experienced governor, who had previously held office in Africa. Yet, he was replaced by a time traveller to do everything wrong. Varus even wrote, some days before the event, that he was suspicious of how friendly some of the local chieftains were being. He knew it was a trap!
They were ambushed and massacred. Caesar Augustus famously exclaimed “Give me back my legions!” and no legion was raised under 17, 18, or 19 for another half millennium.
Image source: Hattix
#38
Star Trek actress Jeri Ryan attending a charity event in 1990 as a blackjack dealer led to Joe Biden becoming president of the USA in 2021.
At the event she meets and later marries Jack Ryan eventually divorcing him in 1999. In 2004 it came to light that Jack was making rather inappropriate sexual requests during their marriage. This causes him to withdraw from the US senate seat race for Chicago that year. Barack Obama takes the seat, then later runs for President taking Joe Biden along as his VP. Biden later uses that profile to run for the big job himself.
So thanks to a blackjack game in 1990, the USA had Joe Biden as leader.
Image source: EmperorOfNipples
#39
Special Order 191.
In 1862, General Robert E. Lee’s orders to his generals regarding the invasion of the North were dropped by a courier near Frederick, Maryland. A Union soldier happened upon them wrapped around some cigars, recognized them as important, and sent them up the chain of command.
Finding these orders was instrumental in the Union victory at Antietam, which gave Lincoln the political clout he needed to issue the Emancipation Proclamation (which, in turn, helped keep England and France from aiding the South). It also quite probably prevented the Battle of Gettysburg from occurring sooner, and from having a very different outcome.
It’s not a stretch to say that it’s entirely possible the South would’ve won the U.S. Civil War had it not been for Special Order 191, and it sounds like a *deus ex machina* in a bad story.
Image source: cerebus19
#40
I might be late to the post here but no one is talking about the assassination of Julius Caesar.
A girl literally showed up and warned him on multiple occasions that something horrible was going to happen on that exact day but he didn’t listen. She 100% went back in time and tried to change the fate of one of the most famous people in history.
Image source: MrSaxbang
#41
When the Persians/Muslims were about to invade Europe, they were suddenly and inexplicably stopped as their invasion fleet fell to “Greek fire”.
Artists of the era made paintings showing a small number of “Greeks” destroying hundreds of ships with what clearly looks to be some sort of portable flamethrower.
No one in antiquity had ever mentioned or used “Greek fire” before that event, and no one since has ever used it again. We still have no idea wtf it was, all we know is it appeared out of nowhere and stopped a monumental invasion.
Image source: Namika
#42
The assassination of Huey Long before his presidential bid. The attempted assassination of George Wallace, which helped derail his presidential bid. its like a time traveler went back and ended two future American dictators before they got too dangerous.
Image source: atomicshark
#43
Burning of the Library of Alexandria. There was something in there we weren’t supposed to know…
Image source: Kookiebanookie
#44
John Muir.
He was working in a machine shop late when debris got in his eye. Later he mysteriously regained his vision just in time for sunrise then he moved west and then became one of those guys that wander the forest to live alone. He lettered Teddy Roosevelt as a tree hugging hobo to check out the Forrest in modern day Yosemite and sure s**t teddy read one of his letters and actually f*****g went. Long story short that’s how we have the national parks.
Image source: Any_Ad4565
#45
The death of Pyrrhus of Epirus.
Cousin of Alexander the Great and one of the best generals in history in his own right. Fought against and beat the fledgling Roman Republic numerous times.
He was trying to subdue Greece so he could rule it as his own. He was seiging the city of Argos. The walls had been breached and close quarters hand to hand combat filled the streets. Pyrrhus was fighting an Argive soldier one on one.
He happened to be fighting this soldier in front of the house of the soldier’s mother. When she looked out and saw her son fighting the king himself, she got scared for him and threw a roof tile at Pyrrhus. It hit him right in the top of his head. His neck was broken and he was left unconscious on the ground. A bunch of soldiers were still too scared to finish it until finally one came up and decapitated him.
Image source: KVirello
#46
Rasputin. Literally just Rasputin.
Tom_Brokaw_is_a_Punk:
How so? He was just an incredibly lucky conman.
Able to cure the tsarevich when he was suffering from complications due to hemophilia? Given the state of turn of the century medicine, it’s probably that he just stopped doctors from making it worse through his instistance on mystical healing and prayer. Like stopping doctors from giving him aspirin for the pain, which is also a blood thinner.
His ability to cheat death? Overrated. The conspirators poisoned him (the person responsible for dosing his food probably failed to do so), shot him but failed to make sure he was dead (he was greviously injured, but survived and almost escaped the house he was in), and then shot him again (as he was limping towards freedom, still bleeding from the first gunshot wound).
His prediction that the Tsar and Tsarina would lose their crowns within 6 months if anything happened to him? Not really a great prediction, given the state of the Russian monarchy in late 1916. And he was actually too optamistic on that front. The Tsar lost his crown within 2 months of Rasputin’s death.
Image source: Snoodoo-6394
#47
The first and only detection of a magnetic monopole. Either a time traveler’s joke or faux pas. Or perhaps the reverse is true, a conspiracy to keep monopoles under wraps, except for that one initial oops.
>This experiment ran for some months with no success, and was eventually relegated to being checked up on only a few times a day. In February of 1982, Valentine’s Day fell on a Sunday, and Cabrera didn’t come into the lab. When he returned to the office on the 15th, he surprisingly found that the computer and the device had recorded exactly 8 magnetons just shy of 2:00 PM on February 14th, 1982.
Image source: pivoters
#48
I’ve wondered about when Washington was a General, and he had the bright idea to sneak up on the English in complete darkness while they were celebrating the holidays at their encampment just across the river.
He didn’t know for sure they would surprise them unawares (surely they would have some lookouts on guard) and it could be disastrous, so he went into the dark woods to pray for some sort of sign or answer.
While praying, an area of the woods became extremely brightly lit and the being he referred to as an angel told him to go, and that everything would be all right. And of course it was.
Was it an angel? An extraterrestrial? A time traveler? All three possibilities excite me. It’s one if his stories I’ve never forgotten.
Image source: liltx11
#49
In 97 AD the chinese empire sent an official envoy to make contact with the Roman empire. They got as far as the parthian(persian) empire in the eastern mediteranean. Parthian sailors (the time travellers?) lied saying it would take 3 months to 2 years. The envoy gave up and returned back to china.
On average it would take 10 days of sailing to reach rome from the eastern mediteranean. Even shorter if they went to a closer roman province. They lied because trade between china and rome made middlemen like the parthian empire immensly rich, who also happened to be romes on and off again eastern rival.
Without that middleman trade income the parthians/persians would’nt have had enough resources to supply an army to fight off the Romans. The arabs wouldn’t have achieved what they did without persian military might. Islam would’ve just been seen as another esoteric eastern cult. Christianity would be more wide spread.
China would want to conquer south east asia in an attempt to control trade routes and Rome would want to expand towards the wealthy northern indian kingdoms. Rome gets split in two due civil war but instead of constantinople as the eastern roman empire its ctesiphon/baghdad as the capitol.
Then the mongols come and f**k it all up.
Image source: kaysea112
#50
June 1942. The Japanese army and navy have quickly expanded their sphere in the south Pacific for the last six months. The US has declared war, but is strategically still reeling after the attack on Pearl Harbor. The Japanese navy depended on striking the base at Midway in order to engage and take out the USS Enterprise and USS Hornet, the two carriers known to be active at the time. Without US naval power in the Pacific, Japan could more easily expand throughout the East Indies and South Pacific.
There are a ton of coincidences that came together to help the US win that battle.
There are several places beforehand where a sharp time traveler could give a nudge to the American or the Japanese side. The US had the advantage of partially breaking JN-25, a Japanese secure communication code, which meant they had a notion of what kind of attack was coming, where, and when, items a time traveler could help with or obscure. They could have also intimated to the Japanese command that the US knew the attack was coming. Yamamoto divided his fleet into several groups that would have had trouble supporting one another, when they could have been advised instead to group together (sacrificing a little speed and surprise, which was immaterial) or use a submarine screen to tell precisely where the US fleet was. A time traveler could have nudged events on the Yorktown so that the damage was less (and it could be repaired to serve as a third carrier, as actually happened) or more (leaving the US with one fewer carrier).
This extends to the battle itself. One crucial example is that US planes under C. Wade McClusky, Jr. had trouble finding the Japanese ships. They were running low on fuel and almost turned back but fortunately spotted the wake of the destroyer Arashi, which was heading back to the Japanese carriers. If McClusky had turned away to refuel, if Arashi had been sunk before returning to the fleet, then the planes would not have found and sunk two carriers (Soryu and Kaga) and the Japanese fleet would have likely won. Those are all points that a time traveler could easily nudge – ensuring the Arashi’s destruction before it tries to return, sending the ship on a wrong heading, or making sure the man commanding those planes would order them to come back.
Image source: TaliesinMerlin
#51
Sometime in (I think) 1676, John Wilmot the 2nd Earl of Rochester got into a scuffle along with his friends at a brothel and one of his friends was killed. Rochester was fine but King Charles II was PISSED and for once didn’t just forgive him. So to pass the time while he was exiled, Rochester set himself up as the Charlatan Dr Bendo — who in addition to claiming to be able to cure scurvy, offered to “cure” infertility. He also posed as Mrs Bendo so that women of the court could be *examined* by him without any suspicion. Allegedly he *cured* the wives of quite a few courtiers who had pissed him off.
It’s almost like a time traveler went back and set up the situation to make sure that children were fathered by Rochester rather than the spouses of those women. ;).
Image source: LAffaire-est-Ketchup
#52
The election of 1876. The 2000 and 2016 elections have nothing on 1876.
Image source: lovesaqaba
#53
Werner Von Braun in his sci fi book “The Mars Project” about the colonization of Mars stated that
>The Martian government was directed by ten men, the leader of whom was elected by universal suffrage for five years and entitled “Elon.” Two houses of Parliament enacted the laws to be administered by the Elon and his cabinet.
Image source: Informal_Chemist6054
#54
Nelson Mandela.
They created a term for mass misremembering as a result.
It’s called the Mandela effect… and I remember clearly Nelson Mandela dying in Jail. I remember because, I remember the world coming together to mourn such a travesty.
…but that DIDN’T happen. He got out of jail, and became a political leader.
F**k the bears. I seriously remember mourning his death.
Image source: The_Real_Johnny_Utah
#55
John Tierney was the first fatality of the Hoover Dam project. 13 years to the day later, the last fatality of the project occurred.
It was Patrick Tierney, John’s son.
Image source: Kulladar
#56
As a high school kid reading way too much science fiction, it was easy to imagine that Jesus was a traveler from the future. Turning water into wine? That just requires some packets of 22nd century Kool-Aid (adult version). Advanced medical treatment brings Lazarus out of coma and cures the lepers. A matter replicator lets him feed the multitude with a few loaves and fishes. Walking on water: that’s a standard feature of 22nd century footwear. “You will deny me 3 times before the c**k crows.” Well of course Jesus knew that would happen, just like he knew he would be crucified: *he read The Book!* Why didn’t he deny his divinity before Pontius Pilate? He knew he couldn’t change history. He didn’t alter history, he fulfilled it.
You have to credit the guy for having the courage to go into the past, knowing what His ending would be. He obviously knew that His message was important to humanity.
Image source: Throw10111021
#57
Not many people know this, but one of the lookouts on the titanic accidentally left his binoculars behind before the voyage, and some theorize that could be the reason he couldn’t have seen the iceberg in time. A time traveller 100% could’ve sabotaged the binoculars somehow.
Image source: WigInTheRafters
#58
Pearl Harbour: I guess that in vanilla time line, Japan just invaded asian locations, and managed to invade most China, k**ling millions and millions of Chinese people (like what they already did, but for decades), so after decades of genocide, Chinese resistance managed to raise a captured japanese baby, teach him perfect Japanese, but indoctrinate him in fervorous Chinese nationalism, then send him at 15 years old to a remote town in 1910s Japan, with the mission of join the army, reach the range of general and then convince the other japanese generals in 1943 to involve the US in the war, knowing that by that time they would be the only ones ables to stop Japan.
Image source: Yalado
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