Eh, I don’t know. Maybe have Putin think twice before invading Ukraine. Possibly lock some dude in 2019 Wuhan into a closet for a week.
Any significant change to the timeline further back than like 5 years might 1) mean I’m never born or 2) might really change my life, and I really like my life. So Unless I can wish for my 20 year old self to lock a thumb drive with 1000 bitcoin into a bank safe until today, I think I’m otherwise good.
To bring to total up to Ten, add another one that says "Thou shalt not say to thy son, thou mayst not do this, for this is the duty of women, nor shalt thou say to thy daughter, thou shalt not do this, for this is the duty of men".
I would stop Emperor Constantine from winning the civil war and adopting Christianity for the Roman Empire. That shit set civilization back by centuries.
TBH it’s not like one religion is worse than others in this way. We’d still have the same state-adopted weirdness, except we would be arguing about whether Jupiter is for sex ed or not.
That said, it would be interesting to see how Islam would have ended up looking like if there is not a lot of Christians to take inspiration from.
This buys into the fallacious Great Man Theory of history.
Constantine didn't make Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire; he ended government-sponsored persecution of Christians in 313, and while he himself was sincere in his conversion, most of the Patrician class remained Pagan, and even the Emperor can't piss off powerful people too much. Christianity didn't become the official religion until 380, under Emperor Theodosius. But it's not like Theodosius forced Christianity on a Pagan populace; Christianity had been growing in the empire for centuries, initially mostly among the poor and slaves. Poor people and slaves have less ability to change things than the rich, but at some point they get big enough that actively opposing them leads to riots and destruction, and you don't want that.
So Rome would have become Christian anyway, no matter who was emperor. Different people holding the office would have resulted in it happening a little differently, but the overall trend was towards Christianity replacing Paganism.
Christianity also didn't result in the fall of the Western Roman Empire. Setting aside that the Roman Empire continued in the east for another millennium, the western part of the empire collapsed due to economic and political forces. It's the same instability that allowed Julius Caesar to become dictator for life, 44 years before Jesus was even born. The empire was totally dysfunctional, so when a populist marched an army in and ordered the Patricians to elect him permanent dictator, they did what he said. But the systemic issues affecting the empire could only be held in check for so long, and eventually the western part came crumbling down.
But it's also incorrect to assert that no new developments took place during the Middle Ages. Off the top of my head, that's when lowercase letters and spaces between words were invented. Plough design also improved a lot during the Middle Ages, allowing more land to be cultivated more effectively.
And one last thing. You say "That shit set civilization back by centuries." Why would the events in Rome have any bearing on the developments of civilisation in Ethiopia, Iran, Arabia, India, China, Cahokia, Mexico, or Peru?
Make it so the Aztecs roundly defeated Hernan Cortez, another conquerer would’ve come but they may have been more prepared and Native Americans may not have lost so much of their sovereignty and culture
You could do better than that by simply sinking the Nina, Pinta, and the Santa Maria with a rocket launcher right as they reached the visible edge of the coast of Portugal.
Columbus returning with slaves and gold was the massive incentive for the invasion of the Americas or what should actually be called turtle Island.
If you had a little more tech than that maybe you could roll up with a warship and decimate a harbor or two and tell everyone that they are not to cross the ocean on pain of fiery wrathful death.
There would still be stories today of a massive Leviathan who destroyed the naval vessels of Spain and England and that is why people are only just now arriving in Turtle Island.
Might also be a good idea to give some advanced tech to the natives. At the very least, horses, carts, wheelbarrows, rifles and the ability to make gunpowder and smelt iron and make concrete.
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