If you could change one thing in your country's history what would it be?

Question

I would change before 9/11. I would make sure our air force was very well defended and on alert. Because of our air defence not being the way it i now. 100's of innocent people died because of Geroge Bush!

Answer 1

I'm Canadian, but I wouldn't change a thing about my own country.

What I would do is make President Woodrow Wilson of the US not be a racist. Because he was a racist, he drove the Vietnamese to Communism, alienated the Japanese, impoverished the Germans, and all this lead to most of the problems now in the world.

See, the Japanese hated America after being betrayed at the end of WWI. The US said they could be part of the Versailles treaty negotiations, only to call them 'five-foot yellow people' and refuse to let them in. This is what caused WWII between the US and Japan.

Because the Vietnamese democratically elected a communist (Ho Chi Min) in 1948, they were suddenly an enemy of the US. Ironically, it was the US that made the Vietnamese distaste democracy and embrace communism. The Vietnamese also wanted to run their own country, rather than be the colonial puppets of France or the US. Because of that, the US had to invade them and try to make them a US possession.

After WWI, German was in really bad shape because of the Treaty of Versailles, the idea of Woodrow Wilson. Hitler came along, making the trains run on time, making jobs for the tremendous number of unemployed, and made Germans proud of themselves again. There you see that the US caused the raise of the Nazis.

After WWII, England had borrowed a lot of money from the US. Because the US put conditions on the British that they give independence to their colonies, lots of countries became sovereign before they were ready. India, Pakistan, Israel, Palestine, Iraq, and many countries in Africa were suddenly running their own show with leaders that held grudges against certain groups. That's why the middle east is unstable and why Africa is in poverty. Had the British not been forced to give-up it's colonies, maybe the world would be a peaceful place.

That's why I would want to make President Woodrow Wilson a more tolerant person, if I could change one thing in history.

Answer 2

I would have had the Congress adopt, and the President sign, the Crittendon Compromise. It would have created an east-west line across the U.S. Below that line, slavery would be permitted. North of the line, it would be prohibited. When the machine age hit in the 1870s, it would have made slavery a very expensive labor-intensive means of production. Slavery would have collapsed under its own weight by 1900 and the entire War Between the States would have been avoided.
BTW, blaming George Bush for the death of thousands as a result of the attack on America displays a juvenile attitude of almost monumental proportions. I lost two friends on the plane which struck the Pentagon building and I don't hold the President responsible for that. Grow up!

Answer 3

I'm going to ignore your foolish, uninformed statements about matters you don' t have a clue about, and get to the heart of your question, which by itself is a very good one: Slavery. If I could change one facet of our nations history, it would be to have never allowed, tolerated or condoned slavery anywhere on American soil. Imagine what this country would be like today if the first slave boats were met at the docks and forced to either turn around and leave, or better still to free their human cargo and have their boats turned into scrap lumber! In fact, I once contemplated writing a sci-fi novel about a man who devoted his whole life to perfecting time travel so he could go back to the very beginning, aand somehow stop the practice of slavery before it took root, thereby forever changing the nations course of history. Indeed, it would have only taken one man with a powerful commitment at exactly the right time to accomplish such a thing.....................

Answer 4

I'm an Aussie, and I would take out the issues and shocking acts done to the Aboriginal people, like the Stolen Generation, the taking of their sacred land and the lack of rights given to them. It's one of the few things that makes me ashamed to be an Aussie!!!

Answer 5

The overwhelming need of the European settlers to subjugate and put down indigenous peoples and to look at themselves as somehow better than the Native American. I would say slavery as well, as to own another human being is a disgrace.

Answer 6

The civil war. The south seceded. Good Riddance!

Answer 7

Besides slavery, I would change how we treated Native Americans. No one should assume they are superior than another race or culture just because they do not understand them. Or, worse, impose their belief system on another.

Answer 8

Those Puritans leaving on that boat.