What was the most significant Event in the History of Man?

The invention of language (if you can call it an event) was much more significant than any one historical figure. Language led to culture that could be transmitted to the next generations, culture to inventions like the flint knife and spear, those weapons led to much free time for more inventions like agriculture, agriculture led to civilization... and the mess we are now in!

 

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The problem with deciding which events were the most unique, like, say the invention of writing, or the invention of flight, is that their very creations were virtually inevitable. If the Wright Brothers hadn't figured out how to fly someone else would have. Same goes for writing, or the development of language at all, to whoever did it first. Same for Jesus as well--I'm sure that if he had broken his neck as a child or something, a different messiah would have rolled around eventually. The Jesus we know of today was largely shaped by the early papacy, by the New Testament. Not by the man himself, if he even really existed. The same would have happened to any replacement, eventually.

So what we have to do is find an event that is quite unique, something that no person other than the original progenitor could have ever created/discovered/influenced. Someone very unique, very different, who did something totally unexpected that would significantly alter the world up to the present day.

Therefore, I choose Constantine the Great, and his abrupt and completely unexpected declaration of Christianity as Rome's official religion. In those times, Christianity was a fringe religion, with little power or influence. To be a bigot, their activities in the larger Roman world didn't extend far beyond being thrown to the lions at the local stadium. And that job didn't carry a good pay, and NO BENEFITS either. If the United States had an official religion (it would probably be Protestant), it would be something to the equivalent, I think, of declaring Neo Paganism the new state-sponsored religion. I don't think that anyone except him would have ever done what he did, ever, furthermore, I believe quite adamently that had he not done what he did, we would still be worshipping the same pagan gods the Greeks, Romans, and their ancestors had been worshipping since virtually the birth of the human race. Christianity and Judaism would likely remain fringe cultures, or would just fade away. Islam would never have formed, or if it did, it would not enjoy the following that it has now.

Without Constantine's actions, the world we would be living in now would be markedly different. It's impossible to say, for better or for worse (many on this liberal board would likely say worse, but I am a skeptic), but it would be different, and it all goes back to him.

 

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That does not take away from the significance of that event. If Wright brothers hadn't taken flight when they did how much time would have passed berfore someone did. People laughed at their attempts so how long?...How would that have effected the coming future?

Sure someone would have done it sooner and later but their significance lies in the fact that their discovery caused change and turned the tides of the coming future.

Sure someone would have fought for his/her people but Martin Luther King did when he did and by doing so he changed the future.

 

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There was already a wealth of information around on flight (work done by Da Vinci, Bernoulli's Principle), and many people were trying to do it at the time--haven't you seen those films of the old flying machines? I bet that if the Wright Brother's hadn't done it, flight would have been accomplished within five years of them.

I agree with you. I don't think he was as influential as Constantine, but I believe that he is irreplaceable in history. It is highly unlikely that someone with his intelligence and oratory skill would have easily filled his place during the Civil Rights movement, just because people like that anywhere are extremely hard to find. I'm not sure that anyone like him exists even today.

 

Its radical to think had he not done what he did. Who could have been as influential?

Oprah?...her influence and power comes from the rights he gained for his people?

For me this raises an interesting question. Do strong black figures like Oprah succeed because of their natural willingness to get ahead or really because they work in a world changed by Martin Luther King. Would Oprah have made it even if King never did what he did?

but I am going way off track here.

 

"Would Oprah have made it even if King never did what he did?"

Absolutely not. No way in hell.

 

I would have to say that the most significant event would be the invention of atomic weapons. It was at this point that we gained the ability to kill off the human race, and knowing man's nature, our future has become somewhat ominous and uncertain. The balance of World power can be shifted in a heartbeat, simply by a country acquiring a stockpile of these weapons(Pakistan, India).

 

If writing wasn't invented then airplanes couldn't have been built.

 

I've always believed that people don't really invent things. The 'times' invent things. It just happens that certain facts/ideas come to light at the same time... and lead somebody to the conclusion of how to do something new. I think this is supported by the number of discoveries that have happened in 2 different places at the same time.

So to echo the thought of others "if 'they' didn't do it, somebody else would".

 

How about the discovery of fire.

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damn some one beat me to it...but yes fire.

 

thanks for the correction (specification), fetus.
I hope one day in the future there's an end to the depndency.....

 

Agriculture

 

Tough call. In addition to those above: Printing.

 

The day I was born.

 

I agree with you fraggle rocker, I made a thread on the subject in human science a while back but I went a bit more extreme, as i do, i can't even remember but I think i might have even said humans would have no written word if it wasn't for dogs.
I think they definately had a huge impact on the human species in many obvious ways and many more less obvious ways and even more ways by extension.
As we domesticated them, they domesticated us.
All the basic things that got civilisation started used to actually require a dog, agriculture is a perfect example. I doubt humans would have become anything like they are today if it wasn't for the joining of teams with dogs.

 

Pockets.

There's an old Jerry Seinfeld bit about "if dogs had pockets."

Steven Brust, in Athyra, makes an odd and subtle point about young boys, talking to girls, and having no place to put your hands.

Put those two together, and the importance of pockets becomes clear.

The advent of pockets--the human ability to be a packrat on the go--made history a living and identifiable experience, even before humans could express the concept.

 

What about shoes? Much more important than pockets. I mean, what's the point of being a pack rat on the go, if you can't actually go anywhere, due to blisters on your feet?

 

How about good sanitation , without a place to dispose of poop, you'd all be in a big problem and up to your ears in poop.

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