If you could change anything in history what would it be?

When I thought about this question, the first thing that came to my mind was the Holocaust. What is more awful and more impactful than the Holocaust?

Then I thought that I probably wouldn’t change anything in history, since everything has lead to where we are today and the world would look drastically different if only one little thing was changed. This is better known as The Butterfly Effect: the idea that a butterfly flapping its wings can cause a tornado, or rather, the idea that one small event can cause everything else to change drastically.

I was interested to hear my peers’ answers, though I figured they would answer similarly to how I had. I was pleased that I instead received an array of answers from big to small, personal to historic events. I allowed them to interpret the question however they wanted.

A housemate says that she would make it so that the Agricultural Revolution never happened. She came to this conclusion after reading the book Ishmael by Daniel Quinn, which theorizes that the downfalls of modern society stem from the mass production of food.

A friend who attends George Washington University and studies International Relations agreed with me, she would reverse the Holocaust. A classmate of mine at Chapman University answered virtually the same way.

A friend studying Engineering at Vanderbilt University first said she wished John White would have returned to the infamous Lost Colony of Roanoke so we would know what happened to the lost colonists . She later changed her answer and said she would bring back Heath Ledger.

A friend who works in publicity said she would change the last election.

My roommate said that she wouldn’t change anything, but if she had to, she would change the fact that Diana, Princess of Wales (fondly remembered as Princess/Lady Di) died in a car crash in 1997.

My old roommate, who works in music, said that she would establish women’s equality since the beginning.

My classmate said that she would prevent 9/11 or the Sandy Hook shooting - the first things that came to her mind. A sorority sister agreed that she would change 9/11 so it would never have happened.

My little sister in my sorority said that she would change slavery in America.

Another sorority sister, a kinesiology student, said that she would change history so that people would have found a cure for cancer before her grandmother passed away from it.

My peers came up with answers to this question that I never would have thought of. They all recognized while there are bad things that have happened in history, humans wouldn’t have learned or evolved as a society without these events.