I know it's not "ancient" and all, but I'm trying be original here!
My plan is to introduce an ethanol-burning internal combustion engines to industrial-revolution -era folks so we would be driving on alcohol instead of petrol and thus rid the world of oil dependency before the term is even coined!
Henry Ford tried to introduce an ethanol-engine once, but the folks in the demonstration ceremony drank all of the "fuel" and, being an absolutist and all, Henry declared that "humanity is not ready to use ethanol as fuel" and thus his cars burned petrol from that moment onwards.