History Retcon / RealLife

* Similarly, the Bourbon Restoration decided to ignore both [[UsefulNotes/TheFrenchRevolution the First French Republic]] and [[UsefulNotes/NapoleonBonaparte Napoleon's empire]]. They declared the son of Louis XVI (who had died of illness while imprisoned) to have been King Louis XVII despite never having ruled or even been crowned, and Louis XVIII dated his own reign from Louis XVII's death in 1795, instead of 1814, when he actually came to power. And when Bonaparte's nephew Louis-Napoleon took over in 1852, he took the regnal name of Napoleon III, with Bonaparte's son termed Napoleon II despite never ruling.

* After UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, French President François Miterrand (a former member of [[LaResistance the Resistance]]) declared that [[LesCollaborateurs the Vichy Regime]] had never been more than a puppet government and Charles de Gaulle was to be recorded as the true and rightful head of state for the duration of the war, even though he spent four of those year in exile in England. This has not prevented many later historians from debating which city was functioning as the true wartime capital of France, London, Brazzaville[[note]]Capital of Free France, and current capital of the Republic of the Congo[[/note]], or Vichy.

* The UsefulNotes/NationalFootballLeague has a rule covering "Palpably Unfair Acts" that allows the NFL Commissioner to take actions up to and including reversing the result of a game (or voiding the game and requiring a do-over) in the event that an especially egregious act is committed. To date, this is only theoretical[[note]]the larger clause is enforced, but consequences up to this point have been limited to lesser penalties like fines or loss of draft picks[[/note]], but it is a power that commissioners are explicitly allowed to exercise in the event that one ever feels it's necessary.

*** However, an informal consensus emerged in most media (especially those that don't televise NASCAR) to use just "Cup Series" when discussing past races in the top series. This became official starting in 2020, when NASCAR adopted a new sponsorship model in which the top series is called the "Cup Series", with four companies as primary sponsors but none having their name on the series itself. Similarly, the third-level Craftsman Truck Series is typically known generically as the "Truck Series" (since all of that series' names have ended with those two words). The second-level series, however, holds to this trope, with the then-current name (now "Xfinity Series") typically used even in historic references. The term "Buschwhackers" (referring to Cup Series teams that race the secondary series for more track time), referring to its former name of the Busch Series, is still common though, although later fans used the term "Cup leech" for a more sponsor-neutral terminology.

** The Big East Conference split into three blocs in 2013 along [[UsefulNotes/CollegiateAmericanFootball football]] lines. One group of three schools moved to the Atlantic Coast Conference, one of the conferences now considered part of the so-called [[UsefulNotes/CollegiateAmericanFootballPower5Conferences Power Five]]. A second group, consisting of schools that didn't sponsor FBS (top-level) football, essentially said "ScrewThisImOuttaHere" and left to form their own non-football conference, buying the "Big East" name. The third group stayed in the conference structure under the new name of American Athletic Conference. The retcon: the current Big East considers itself the athletic successor of the original conference in all sports that it sponsors, and The American goes along with this. (Interestingly, this means that the pre-2013 histories of Big East football and women's rowing—the two sports that were sponsored by the pre-2013 Big East and remain sponsored by The American—are not recognized by ''either'' conference.)

* When Seti I created the Abydos kinglist, which listed all of Egypt's pharaohs from King Menes, several were conspicuously missing: Hatshepsut, who had been retconned after her death by Thutmose III; UsefulNotes/{{Akhenaten}}, the Heretic King; and Tutankhamun and Ay, presumably because of association with Akhenaten. Instead, Horemheb's reign dates from the end of Amenhotep III's. 40 years after Hatshepsut's death, Thutmose III tried to erase all evidence that she had ever been pharaoh -- we don't know why, but it may have been that a female pharaoh shook up the status quo too much.

* Commonwealth countries that recognize the British monarch as head of state, such as Australia and Canada, originally did so as colonies, as it was only natural for the ruler of the imperial power to also be the nominal head of all colonial governments. As the colonies became more autonomous and self-governing, imperial law became more complicated, and when UsefulNotes/ElizabethII ascended to the throne, she was proclaimed to be the independent queen of over a dozen independent monarchies (i.e.; Queen of Australia of the Australian monarchy), rather than the imperial British queen. Commonwealth countries now frequently retcon old British monarchs in this way ("Former Kings of Canada") which further muddles the evolution of the relationship. Furthermore, the queen's regnal name in all the countries she reigns over is 'Elizabeth II'. With the possible exception of Canada (there was a tiny English settlement in Canada during Elizabeth I's reign), she is the first monarch called Elizabeth in all her countries except Britain itself (and even that doesn't hold true in Scotland).

* The 2006 reclassification of Pluto as a dwarf planet retconned decades of science textbooks. It was starting to get embarrassing as more and more trans-Neptunian objects were discovered that were of a similar size (one of them, Eris, is larger) but were deemed too small to call planets. The main argument for keeping Pluto in the class of planets was "cultural" (read: sentimental), so the "dwarf planet" term was a cultural compromise with a scientific bonus. Culturally, Pluto's significance as the first Kuiper Belt Object discovered and as one of the largest was still recognized (it became the {{Trope Namer|s}} for a new sub-class of [=KBOs=] / dwarf planets, the [[PerfectlyCromulentWord plutoids]]). Scientifically, Pluto was no longer complicating the IAU's terrestrial planet definition and the "upgrade" of Ceres from asteroid to dwarf planet resolved the paradox of the latter being the only Asteroid Belt Object massive enough to have overcome hydrostatic equilibrium and taken on a spherical shape [[note]]Ceres alone represents about a third of the total mass of the Asteroid Belt[[/note]]. Like Pluto, Ceres was considered a planet when it was first discovered in 1801 but "downgraded" soon afterwards when other large objects were found in the same general orbit.

* Pope Gregory XIII decreed that the day after Thursday, 4 October 1582 would be not Friday, 5 October, but Friday, 15 October 1582. This was due to a miscalculation of days in the Julian calendar that had caused the Vernal Equinox to seemingly change from the traditional March 21 to March 11. Since the Church scheduled Easter based on the first day of Spring, the retcon was seen as necessary.

* Easter eggs are said to tie into Easter, which celebrates the resurrection of Jesus, because they're a symbol of new life, and the empty shells represent the tomb Jesus awakened from and left empty. These metaphors were probably applied retroactively, and Easter eggs [[https://time.com/4732984/easter-eggs-history-origins/ likely originated from the pagan tradition]] of people eating, exchanging and burying eggs during spring equinox festivals to represent the end of winter and beginning of spring. Christian missionaries likely shoehorned the tradition into their holiday as a way to encourage conversions.

*** However, an informal consensus emerged in most media (especially those that don't televise NASCAR) to use just "Cup Series" when discussing past races in the top series. This became official starting in 2020, when NASCAR adopted a new sponsorship model in which the top series is called the "Cup Series", with four companies as primary sponsors but none having their name on the series itself. Similarly, the third-level Camping World Truck Series is typically known generically as the "Truck Series" (since all of that series' names have ended with those two words). The second-level series, however, holds to this trope, with the then-current name (now "Xfinity Series") typically used even in historic references. The term "Buschwhackers" (referring to Cup Series teams that race the secondary series for more track time), referring to its former name of the Busch Series, is still common though, although later fans used the term "Cup leech" for a more sponsor-neutral terminology.

** When FIFA sponsored its first official world championship events for women's football/soccer in 1991, it didn't want to use the "[[UsefulNotes/TheWorldCup World Cup]]" name, instead calling it the "1st FIFA World Championship for Women's Football for the M&M's Cup". By the time the next such event rolled around in 1995, FIFA decided to officially use the "World Cup" name, and declared the 1991 event to have been the first FIFA Women's World Cup.

** In UsefulNotes/{{NASCAR}}, the various racing series have changed names several times due to changes in sponsorship; commentators discussing past races (until recently) pretty much always referred to them by the current names, no matter what the series was called at the time. For instance, until very recently it could be mentioned that UsefulNotes/DaleEarnhardt won seven Monster Energy Cup championships, even though when he won them they were called Winston Cup championships. Similarly, UsefulNotes/RichardPetty's seven Cup championships consist of two Grand National and five Winston Cup titles, and Jimmie Johnson's seven consist of two Nextel Cup and five Sprint Cup titles.

* Commonwealth countries that recognize the British monarch as head of state, such as Australia and Canada, originally did so as colonies, as it was only natural for the ruler of the imperial power to also be the nominal head of all colonial governments. As the colonies became more autonomous and self-governing, imperial law became more complicated, and when [[UsefulNotes/HMTheQueen Elizabeth II]] ascended to the throne, she was proclaimed to be the independent queen of over a dozen independent monarchies (i.e.; Queen of Australia of the Australian monarchy), rather than the imperial British queen. Commonwealth countries now frequently retcon old British monarchs in this way ("Former Kings of Canada") which further muddles the evolution of the relationship. Furthermore, the queen's regnal name in all the countries she reigns over is 'Elizabeth II'. With the possible exception of Canada (there was a tiny English settlement in Canada during Elizabeth I's reign), she is the first monarch called Elizabeth in all her countries except Britain itself (and even that doesn't hold true in Scotland).

* The US college ranks also have a few examples:
** The UsefulNotes/{{NCAA}} Division I men's basketball tournament was first held in 1939, well before the NCAA split into divisions. However, that 1939 edition wasn't organized by the NCAA, but instead by the trade association for college men's coaches, the National Association of Basketball Coaches. The NCAA took over the event the following year, and recognized the 1939 NABC championship as its own.
** In some other sports, the NCAA treats championship events organized by other bodies as part of its official records. The most notable example is in men's golf, in which a national collegiate championship has been held since 1897–nine years before the NCAA was founded. This championship was organized by a body last known as the National Intercollegiate Golf Association. In 1939, the NCAA took over the event, and recognizes the pre-1939 championships as its own—including those from the era before the NCAA itself existed.[[note]]Because of this retcon, Yale is officially recognized as the Division I FCS (second level of college football) school with the most NCAA team championships across all sports, despite ''20'' of its 29 "NCAA" titles being pre-1939 NIGA golf titles. Among FCS schools, Villanova has the most titles actually awarded by the NCAA.[[/note]]

*** However, an informal consensus emerged in most media (especially those that don't televise NASCAR) to use just "Cup Series" when discussing past races in the top series. This became official starting in 2020, when NASCAR adopted a new sponsorship model in which the top series is called the "Cup Series", with four companies as primary sponsors but none having their name on the series itself. Similarly, the third-level Gander RV & Outdoors Truck Series is typically known generically as the "Truck Series" (since all of that series' names have ended with those two words). The second-level series, however, holds to this trope, with the then-current name (now "Xfinity Series") typically used even in historic references. The term "Buschwhackers" (referring to Cup Series teams that race the secondary series for more track time), referring to its former name of the Busch Series, is still common though, although later fans used the term "Cup leech" for a more sponsor-neutral terminology.