25 Times People Were Convinced A Time Traveller Influenced Historical Events

Join us as we embark on a journey through time, exploring forgotten acts of heroism, analysing patterns across different eras that reveal remarkable coincidences, and considering predictions throughout history that seemed uncannily accurate. Instances abound where people in the past have recorded events so improbable to be mere happenstance that they prompted speculation—could these be the result of interference by a time traveller, guardian angel, or even extraterrestrial forces?

#1

Image source: Idkeepplaying, Council on Foreign Relations

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.

#2

Image source: TuckerMouse, Samuel Stillman Osgood

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.

#3

Image source: AustinJG, Queery-54

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.

#4

Image source: willmac28, David Morgan-Mar/flickr

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.

#5

Image source: RigasTelRuun, Ferdinand Schmutzer – Österreichische Nationalbibliothek

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.

#6

Image source: Fickle_Penguin, Leonardo da Vinci

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.

#7

Image source: smokeyman992, Google Arts & Culture

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.

#8

Image source: joaaoluucas, Andrew Smith/flickr

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.

#9

Image source: rgrtom, Unknown author – Appomattox Court House National Historical Park

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.

#10

Image source: Stonesword75, FOX

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.

#11

Image source: anon, Twice Bombed: The Legacy of Yamaguchi Tsutomu

Tsutomu Yamaguchi

Survived both the bombings at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Reads like a satirical time-traveler story where the protagonist screws up his dates.

#12

Image source: seanbear, British Army

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?”

#13

Image source: Katavallos

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?

#14

Image source: Demiscio8, Paul-Henri Talbot

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.

#15

Image source: The_Patriot, Napoleon Sarony

**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.

#16

Image source: bd_magic, Katie Crisalli

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.

#17

Image source: Gentleman_Viking, Unknown author

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.

#18

Image source: BoredRedditor25, Koektrommel

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.

#19

Image source: anon, German Federal Archives

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.

#20

Image source: Two_Bears_HighFiving, Ralph Eleaser Whiteside Earl

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.

#21

Image source: Ferelar, unknown illustrator

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.

#22

Image source: sekscat, Unknown author

A book that predicted the sinking of the Titanic.

Futility: The Wreck of the Titan.

#23

Image source: randyfromm, Unknown author

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.

#24

Image source: pm_me_gnus, Ishan @seefromthesky/unsplash

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.

#25

Image source: nerodidntdoit, Classical Numismatic Group, Inc

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.