Yes, of course. November 5, 1955. That was the day I invented time travel. I remember it vividly. I was standing on the edge of my toilet hanging a clock, the floor was wet, I slipped, hit my head on the edge of the sink... and when I came to I had a revelation: a picture. A picture in my head, a picture of this: this is what makes time travel possible... the flux capacitor. Spoiler
I would go back to 1977 and tell my teenage self to get my ^%#$ together and make sure I put the moves on a couple of girls because, looking back on it, I think they were into me. I would then give me a short list of companies to invest in over the next 30 years and another list of which teams to bet heavily on. I would then tell me that I have to find and marry my current wife in 1992 because even though I'd be rich and swimming in chicks, she's awesome and I will make great kids with her. That, or kill Hitler. Or kneecap Nixon. Or hang out with the Continental Congress. Or kill vampires with Abe. But probably that.
<iframe src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/S4m848bh1iY" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" width="560"></iframe> hang out with guys like Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg when they were losers and become part of their crew. of course also win the $650million Lotto.
I would stop Columbus. Saving 100m+ indigenous peoples of the Americas. Or if you're going more recent, I would stop Germany from starting WWI (ONE). Hitler never would have come into power if not for WWI. The Communists probably wouldn't have come into power, eventually giving rise to Stalin, one of the biggest mass-murderers in history. Of course, the downside of stopping WWI is that Britain keeps up it's imperialistic ways and continues to commit genocide worldwide.
I would go back in time to the night of April 14, 1912 and b****slap the Captain of the Californian who ignored the Titanic in trouble by dismissing everything out of hand when he could have just navigated over there to check it out and be the hero. "White rockets...hmm....must be a firework show at 1 am in the morning." "Hmm...must be using the rockets' light to try to navigate around the icebergs." "Don't wake the communicator and fire up the wireless tele since it is shut off for the night. Nah!"' "Nah...it's not the titanic. Looks like a cargo ship. Don't bother raising them on the radio even if though they have rockets firing off." "Hmm...the ship is noticably listing. Then, the ship disappears. Hmm...we will go over there in a few hours and see what is up (after the Carpathia had already picked up the survivors)." "Anything else...back to bed. Wake me if something interesting happens while we wait on the ice drift to clear."
I would go back to ancient China at the heights of the Shaolin Temple, I would be the lone causasian monk practicing chi kung with the other monks.
You'd go back to the Titanic and your decision would be to make sure the rescue boats got there in time? Not make sure the Titanic didn't HIT the iceberg? Or walk in on Rose when she was being drawn on that couch?
We need the opposite version of Successful Black Man meme for that. Would be perfect. "I am going to shoot Obama............ an email congratulating him on healthcare"
There was a saga that I read during middle school called Darren Shan's Saga about vampires and destiny. The interesting thing they mention in the book about destiny is that no matter what you to try to change something somebody or some other event will take it's place. So for example if you go back and kill Hitler, somebody else would fill into Hitler's place in history, or if you stopped 9/11 some other event of that magnitude would happen.
My feelings there are they wouldn't listen to me because they were trying to make good time. They ignored all previous ice warnings. Why would they listen to me with talk about their future fate if they don't slow down and/or stop? But, I could still b****slap the Californian Captain no problem and probably make him understand that is the Titanic in trouble over there (just radio them and check...what can it hurt?). Rose wasn't on the Titanic silly. That was just a movie.