I was watching TVH and it occurred to me: "Kirk prevented the Eugenics Wars." Think of all the small and even big changes Kirk and crew caused in 1986. And consider all of the technological and historic predictions came true in Trek before the mid-80's and how massively wrong they were on others (namely, the Eugenics Wars and/or WW3) in our reality. Using the Abrams model of alternate universes, any change creates it's own universe. Therefore, Kirk created our universe by preventing these wars.
Thank you, Colorado.
Edit: to answer any questions, Kirk and crew returned to their timeline because Spock used the exact same coordinates to get back.