If you could eliminate one person from history...who would it be?

[lastlib]

115. (uh, Edison didn't invent the telephone...)

that was Alexander Graham Bell (hence the Bell System.) Edison's other main inventions were the phonograph and the
motion picture.

To address your central idea: Yes, der Fuehrer would be my first choice, as I think it would be everyone's. But for purposes of discussion, I will go with Josef Stalin. To me, he epitomizes evil to an extent surpassed only by Adolf. The 1917 Revolution would have taken a different course, Trotsky would likely have been Lenin's successor, and millions might have been spared the gulag. The Soviet state might not have become the oppressive monster that it became under Stalin and his followers, and it might have endured into this century, or evolved toward a more "democratic" model.

Of course, I would also like to see Poppy Bush's sperm run down his leg instead of becoming Dubya. That would have spared America much misery.