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[[quoteright:350:[[ComicBook/{{Chassis}} https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/adolf.png]]]]
[[caption-width-right:350:In this universe [[UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler his]] struggle is with [[WritersBlock Artist's Block]] instead of... [[Literature/MeinKampf y'know]].]]
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Sometimes writers of [[AlternateHistory counterfactual]] stories decide to disregard plausibility in order to throw in their stories cameos by historical figures from our own timeline but in a totally different occupation. Usually this is done as something of an in-joke with the audience or the dimension-hopping character(s); seeing UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler as a StarvingArtist instead of the tyrannical dictator he was in real life would tickle anyone's funny bone. Adolf Hitler actually aspired to be an artist prior to getting into politics; he was an avid fan of Creator/{{Disney}} and was rejected (twice) by an art school. That said, the cameo doesn't need to have a root in history, [[ShownTheirWork but it's more fun if they do]]. After all, who doesn't appreciate a good HistoricalInJoke?

The {{Trope Namer|s}} is from Creator/HarryTurtledove's alternate history novel ''Literature/TheTwoGeorges'', where UsefulNotes/RichardNixon is a successful used car salesman in the [[AmericaIsStillAColony North American Union]]. That itself was a joke about a 1960 Democratic campaign poster, showing Nixon with a KubrickStare and the caption "Would YOU buy a used car from this man?" Funnily enough, Nixon's parents did own a gas station when he was growing up, so him going into the auto industry instead of politics isn't too implausible.

Related to InSpiteOfANail. A subtrope of AllohistoricalAllusion. Compare with DifferentWorldDifferentMovies and BeethovenWasAnAlienSpy. Contrast AlternateUniverseReedRichardsIsAwesome.

----
!!Examples:

[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder:Anime & Manga]]
* ''Manga/FateKaleidLinerPrismaIllya'':
** The Shirou Emiya from Illya's universe is an ordinary schoolboy with no magical powers whose family keeps him LockedOutOfTheLoop when it comes to the supernatural. The Shirou Emiya from Miyu's universe is a badass who mastered his powers and followed a path of heroism similar to the Shirou Emiya from ''VisualNovel/FateStayNight''.
** In the alternate universe Miyu comes from, Kirei Kotomine, the BigBad of ''stay night'', is a washed-up priest forced to open a ramen shop to make ends meet. He's still a total prick, though. He charges absurd prices and always serves [[TrademarkFavoriteFood extremely spicy mapo tofu]] regardless of what his customers actually order.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Comic Books]]
* In an AlternateUniverse featured in ''ComicBook/TheAvengers'' No. 147, Nixon never had a political career. UsefulNotes/NelsonRockefeller is the incumbent US President in 1976. His immediate predecessor was UsefulNotes/HubertHumphrey. In reality, Humphrey was the Democratic presidential nominee in 1968 but was defeated by Nixon while Rockefeller sought the Republican nomination in 1960, 1964, and 1968 but lost it to Nixon on the first and third occasions (and to UsefulNotes/BarryGoldwater on the second).
* The ''Literature/{{Baltimore}}'' series "The Curse Bells" - set during an AlternateHistory version of UsefulNotes/WorldWarI - features an unnamed German corporal / warlock, and tries to make a [[DealWithTheDevil deal]] with the vampire BigBad. He's depicted as a singularly bad guy, probably worse than the vampires themselves. Eventually we learn that although he's in the German army, [[UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler he was born in Austria, and he thinks that swastikas are really cool, and he is probably considering shaving off the tips of his mustache.]] Ultimately, [[spoiler: he is torn apart by vampire nuns and never gets to see his dream come to fruition, in what is perhaps the only way ''Baltimore'''s CrapsackWorld is better than ours]]. A rare case where this trope is played deadly serious.
* Occurs in ''ComicBook/BulletPoints''. [[Characters/MarvelComicsBuckyBarnes James Barnes]] never becomes Bucky, Stephen Strange uses S.H.I.E.L.D's implants to continue his work as a surgeon and Tony Stark is just a businessman [[spoiler:until he takes the mantle of Iron Man after Steve's death]].
* In the AlternateHistory 1949 that ''ComicBook/{{Chassis}}'' is set in, Adolf Hitler is a cartoonist. And Elanor Roosevelt is the President of the USA.
* One of Creator/DCComics' {{Elseworld}} stories has [[Characters/BatmanTheCharacter Bruce Wayne]] as Gotham City's police chief.
* ''ComicBook/{{Exiles}}'' practically runs on this with the team of heroes traveling to alternate worlds where characters from the main universe won't be in the same roles they were in from the first. For example in the first arc, the team think to help Charles Xavier only to find out that in the world they were sent to, he's a ''criminal'' and Magneto is actually a good guy.
* ''ComicBook/HackSlash'': In ''Hackoween'' (a CrossOver with ''ComicBook/HalloweenMan''), Cassie grabs an entertainment magazine off a newsstand and discovers that on Halloween Man's world, Music/RobZombie is a big band leader.
* In ''ComicBook/TheLeagueOfExtraordinaryGentlemen'', the dictator of Nazi Germany is [[Film/TheGreatDictator Adenoid Hynkel]], while "Addie Hitler" is an Austrian-American [[Creator/CharlieChaplin silent film actor]] who bears a passing resemblance to Hynkel, and makes his name playing a parody of him in propaganda films.
* One of the projects in Marvel's anthology ''Millennial Visions'' has alternate versions of [[Characters/MarvelComicsCyclops Cyclops]], [[Characters/MarvelComicsRogue Rogue]], [[Characters/MarvelComicsQuicksilver Quicksilver]] and [[Characters/MarvelComicsNightcrawler Nightcrawler]] never becoming superheroes, but founding a rock band called "[[WesternAnimation/XMenEvolution X-Men: Revolution]]".
* In ''ComicBook/MyLittlePonyNightmareKnights'', one of the ponies visiting the casino is an alternate reality version of Twilight Sparkle who, instead of becoming a beloved hero and the Princess of Friendship, is a stage magician known as "The Great and Powerful Twily". Her dialog implies that Trixie, who in the main universe is a traveling magician with little legitimate magic skill, is an alicorn princess in her universe.
* In Creator/WarrenEllis' ''ComicBook/{{Newuniversal}}'', counterparts of various characters from main Franchise/MarvelUniverse live mostly mundane lives - [[Characters/MarvelComicsMaryJaneWatson Mary Jane Watson]] is a movie producer and drug addict, John Jameson is black and joined the military, and supervillain Jim Braddock is an archaeologist. [[ComicBook/IronMan Tony Stark]] is a complete moron who gets gifted with supernatural talent to make all kinds of technology from literally [[MemeticMutation a box of scraps]], but gets himself killed before having a chance to become a superhero ... and [[Characters/IncredibleHulkCentralRoguesGallery Thunderbolt Ross]] [[SubvertedTrope is still a General in the U.S. Army]], but is bald.
* A DC/Wildstorm crossover had the ComicBook/{{Planetary}} team looking into murders in the Wildstorm universe's Gotham City. There's no Batman, but their universe's Dick Grayson (the first Characters/{{Robin}}, later Characters/{{Nightwing|DickGrayson}}) is the head of Planetary's Gotham field office, assisted by someone heavily hinted to be an alternate version of [[Characters/BatmanTheJoker The Joker]].
* Marvel's series ''ComicBook/{{Powerless}}'' is all about this trope - it's set in a world where none of Marvel's protagonists or antagonists have superpowers. [[Characters/MarvelComicsPeterParker Peter Parker]] is a normal teenager, Tony Stark and [[Characters/MarvelComicsNormanOsborn Norman Osborn]] compete for a government's contract for their PoweredArmor projects (codenamed ComicBook/IronMan and The Characters/{{Juggernaut|MarvelComics}} respectively), [[Characters/MarvelComicsMattMurdock Matt Murdock]] is just a blind lawyer, [[Characters/MarvelComicsMagneto Eric Magnus]] and [[Characters/MarvelComicsProfessorX Charles Xavier]] are senators, [[ComicBook/DoctorStrange Stephen Strange]] is a stage magician and [[Characters/MarvelComicsBruceBanner Bruce Banner]] is in an insane asylum. The only one who has any sort of extraordinary life is [[Characters/MarvelComicsLoganHowlett Logan]], caught in political intrigue, and the protagonist of the story, who has visions of everybody's counterparts from the mainstream Marvel Universe [[spoiler:because he is The Watcher's counterpart in that universe]].
* In ''ComicBook/SupermanRedSon'', Nixon won the 1960 election but was assassinated in Dallas in 1963. In 1978, Characters/{{Wonder Woman|TheCharacter}} opines that the US has been going downhill ever since then. By that time, UsefulNotes/JohnFKennedy is President. His father Joseph P. Kennedy (who was seemingly dead by then as he was in reality) was concerned that being the first President to divorce and remarry while in office would be JFK's lasting contribution to history. His second wife is Creator/MarilynMonroe, who goes by her real name Norma Jean Mortenson as First Lady. She once had an affair with the head of the Moscow Police. After the United Kingdom becomes a communist country, Tony Benn is seemingly a senior figure in its government.
* In the alternate timeline of ''ComicBook/TheUniques'', Creator/NewtGingrich became the President of the United States in the nineties.
* One of the differences between the ''ComicBook/{{Watchmen}}'' universe and ours is that a couple of characters, discussing a newspaper headline reading "RR to Run for President?", dismiss the idea that the American public could possibly vote for a "cowboy actor". They, and the headline, are talking about [[spoiler:Robert Redford]]. No mention is made of what happened to [[UsefulNotes/RonaldReagan the RR that actually did]] run for (and win) President in our timeline.
* Self-parody Creator/MarvelComics ''[[WhatIf Wha... huh...]]?'' features worlds where Creator/StanLee sells hot-dogs and Creator/MarkMillar is homeless, as they never got into comics.
* Sometimes Marvel series ''ComicBook/WhatIf'' went there, mostly in humorous backups, which featured things like [[Characters/MarvelComicsLogan Wolverine]] working at a delicatessen or the [[Characters/MarvelComicsBruceBanner Hulk]] becoming school hall monitor (he later became a principal and hired [[Characters/MarvelComicsFrankCastle the Punisher]] to do his old job).
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Fan Works]]
* ''Fanfic/CodexEquus'': In the Codexverse, while he still makes music, Blue Suede Heartstrings became a [[WalkingTheEarth globe-trotter]] after he was motivated by Luminiferous to quit the music industries in the Second Age so he could perform for his beloved fans on his own terms. This actually saved him from the decline and UndignifiedDeath suffered by his character inspiration, Music/ElvisPresley, as instead he would eventually [[DeityOfHumanOrigin become an Alicorn god]] as a result of his travels.
* In ''Fanfic/{{Copacetic}}'', Taylor discovers that Earth Dalet's version of [[Literature/{{Worm}} canon character]] [[spoiler:Rebecca Costa-Brown]] is just a low-ranking federal agent.
* ''Literature/GoodOmens'' fic ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/4996073/1/The-Viennese-Job The Viennese Job]]'' by Creator/AAPessimal sees demon Crowley active in Austria in 1908. Crowley is instructed by Hell to check out a struggling artist who is thought to have promise for the future. Crowley duly gets involved in the life of a hopeless dreamer with a sociopathic streak [[note]]not improved at all by Hell's intervention[[/note]] who has been rejected twice by a prestigious art school but who has an inflated opinion of a middling talent to paint. Ideas are duly implanted in the head of young [[UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler Dolfi]].
* ''In a Better World'': [[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/14193024/4/In-a-better-world Chapter 4]] reveals that, in the BizarroWorld of ''Series/SupermanAndLois'', UsefulNotes/JoeBiden is a fashion designer, UsefulNotes/KamalaHarris hosts a cooking TV show; and Creator/JerrySeinfeld is the President and Music/TaylorSwift is the Vice-President.
* In ''Fanfic/MiraculousThePhoenixRises'', UsefulNotes/JoeBiden is Mayor and Dr. Anthony Fauci is a school nurse.
* In ''Fanfic/Plan7Of9FromOuterSpace'' the supervillain gives a BadassBoast of how (thanks to being a MasterOfDisguise) he has been the most evil men in history! The heroes are not impressed when one of them turns out to be UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler, [[Literature/TheIronDream writer of sci-fi pulp novels]]. ("How dare you inflict those atrocities on the world!") Meanwhile sci-fi writer Creator/RobertAHeinlein was a naval commodore during the Cold War -- a short yet bloody conflict in Alaska between the US and Sino-Soviet Union.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]
* In ''Film/AbrahamLincolnVampireHunter'', the [[UsefulNotes/AbrahamLincoln 16th President]] sees that a vampire is responsible for his mother's death, so he goes on a mission to take care of the undead and avenge his mother's death.
* In the French movie ''Jean-Philippe'', French rock star Creator/JohnnyHallyday is the manager of a small bowling hall and goes by his real name of Jean-Philippe Smet.
* In ''Film/TheOne'', Agent Funsch's boss from his timeline, Agent Roedecker, is killed. However, Funsch later meets another version of Roedecker working as a gas station attendant.
* In ''Film/ShanghaiKnights'', Chon and Roy meet Creator/ArthurConanDoyle while he is an inspector at Scotland Yard, and they also meet a young Creator/CharlieChaplin who is an orphan on the streets of London. Roy arbitrarily comes up with the name "Literature/SherlockHolmes", which inspires Conan Doyle's new novel.
* ''Film/StarTrek2009'' started out this way for Kirk in the backstory, although this was rectified by the end of the film.
* In ''Film/Yesterday2019'', Music/JohnLennon lives a quiet life into old age in a world where Music/TheBeatles never existed.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Literature]]
* Creator/HarryTurtledove likes this trope a lot.
** ''Literature/TheTwoGeorges'' is the {{Trope Namer|s}}; UsefulNotes/TheAmericanRevolution was averted by diplomacy and America is still a part of the British Empire. UsefulNotes/RichardNixon is the rich and successful owner of a chain of [[HonestJohnsDealership used car stores]] (not surprising considering his skill at diplomacy and negotiation). The novel, set in 1990, also features Sir UsefulNotes/MartinLutherKingJr as the Governor-General of the North American Union, and UsefulNotes/JohnFKennedy as the editor of a pro-independence newspaper. UsefulNotes/AndrewJackson served as Governor-General in the 1830s and oversaw the abolition of slavery in the North American Union.
** In the ''Literature/Timeline191'' series:
*** A character is listening to a football broadcast narrated by a sportscaster named [[UsefulNotes/RonaldReagan "Dutch"]]. The character thinks "Dutch" could make anything sound interesting. "If anyone was a great communicator, he was the man."
*** In ''How Few Remain'' (the first installment), [[Creator/MarkTwain Samuel Clemens]] is a journalist in UsefulNotes/SanFrancisco, having given up on novel writing as a way to earn a living. Also, UsefulNotes/AbrahamLincoln, who lost the 1864 presidential election as a consequence of losing the Civil War, becomes a socialist activist; in later books he is considered one of the pivotal figures in American socialism.
*** Clemens and Reagan did at one point work respectively as a journalist[[note]]He was a failed gold miner and steamboat pilot.[[/note]] and sportscaster[[note]]He called baseball, namely UsefulNotes/{{Chicago}} Cubs games for radio audiences in Iowa. When he became president, he was a member of the Verban Memorial Society, a bipartisan federal officeholders' Cubs fan club. In 2010, the Society inducted President and [[ArchEnemy White Sox]] fan UsefulNotes/BarackObama.[[/note]] in real life, though not in exactly the circumstances shown in TL-191.
*** Lincoln is something of a borderline case, in that his activism is both a direct and somewhat plausible consequence of the divergence and that his alternate job was being dead.
*** There's also "[[Creator/ErnestHemingway Ernie]]," who's still a writer, but he writes biographies, is considered a hack, never travelled to Spain (though [[AllohistoricalAllusion he ponders if he should]]) and is even more depressed than the real-life analogue. All because [[spoiler:[[{{Squick}} he got]] [[CripplingCastration his penis]] [[AllohistoricalAllusion blown]] [[Literature/TheSunAlsoRises off]] in [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarOne The Great War]]]].
*** In ''The Center Cannot Hold'', set in the 1920s after the Central Powers win UsefulNotes/WorldWarI, one character meets a Lieutenant-Colonel Heinz Guderian, who is accompanied by a [[UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler very angry sergeant]] who keeps spouting off about Jews and Poles.
*** Baseball never became America's pastime in the TL-191 series. However, Turtledove is a baseball fan, and from time to time you'll find classic baseball players appearing in the story as football players, factory workers, soldiers, etc.
** ''Literature/TheCaseOfTheToxicSpellDump'' has a brief appearance by a stern, impressively bearded US judge of Islamic origins named [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruhollah_Khomeini Ruhollah]]. It's briefly mentioned that he left [[IstanbulNotConstantinople Persia]] when the secularist government was formed.
** In the short story "Literature/JoeSteele", UsefulNotes/JosephStalin's parents had emigrated to the United States before he was born. He becomes president of a U.S. that, under his leadership, changes into a country so different that it [[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything just might remind you of something]]. Leon Trotsky becomes leader of the Soviet Union.
** In ''Literature/RuledBritannia'', the Spanish conquered England in 1588 and installed the Infanta Isabella Clara Eugenia as the new queen (as it was the plan of Philip II in real life). The butterflies are limited because the story takes place only ten years after that, but we get to see Lope de Vega as a soldier garrisoned in London, Diego Flores de Valdés (second in command of the Spanish Armada) as the commander in chief of the Spanish occupation forces, Thomas Phelippes as Valdés' secretary and a double agent working for the English resistance, petty criminals Nick Skeres and Ingram Frizer (and notable to us only as the killers of Creator/ChristopherMarlowe, who is still alive in the book) as members of such resistance, Will Adams (of ''{{Literature/Shogun}}'' fame) as a sailor in the Netherlands, Robert Parsons as the Archbishop of Canterbury and a Cardinal, and the impoverished, exiled Catholic 6th Earl of Westmoreland as a rich, influential nobleman who is the main financer of Creator/WilliamShakespeare's theatre troupe.
** In ''Literature/{{Worldwar}}'', the destruction of Washington, D.C., in 1944 leads to Secretary of State Cordell Hull becoming President. In 1961, Earl Warren (Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court in OTL) is elected president. [[spoiler:His suicide in 1965]] leads to VP Harold Stassen (he actually did run for president in 1948 in OTL) ascending to presidency.
*** In another area, a draftee after some particularly hard combat complains "I'm so tired, [[Music/GratefulDead I'd be grateful to be dead]]." to which others yell "Shut up [[Music/GratefulDead Jerry]]."
* The counterfactual AuthorTract ''The Probability Broach'' by L. Neil Smith also features Nixon: in an alternate timeline where America became a libertarian {{utopia}}, he became a small-time crook. In the same novel, [[UsefulNotes/JimmyCarter "Jim-Earl"]] is briefly seen selling peanuts for a living. Another work by the same author features Hitler, who immigrated to the U.S. and became a painter/embarrassing dad.
** And Creator/RobertAHeinlein stayed in the navy, rising to the rank of Admiral. Other sci-fi writers have used this gag in an affectionate homage to Heinlein, such as the TwistEnding to ''The Return of William Proxmire'', by Creator/LarryNiven.
* Creator/MichaelMoorcock's famous ''Nomad Of The Time Streams'' trilogy:
** UsefulNotes/RonaldReagan is a jingoistic Boy Scout leader in the first novel ''Warlord of the Air''.
** The same novel features a greying and unsuccessful Russian revolutionary leader named [[UsefulNotes/VladimirLenin Vladimir Ulyanov]], now a scheming terrorist roaming the Eurasian skies in an airship.
** Also sneaked in early on in the first novel is a "Lieutenant Michael Jagger" who may or may not be related to a [[Music/MickJagger certain rock star]] in RealLife...
** The third novel has a feared SkyPirate of Georgian descent, a certain [[UsefulNotes/JosephStalin Dzhugashvilli]]. [[DontExplainTheJoke He's the title]] ''[[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything Steel Tsar]]''.
* Moorcock's early story "The Pleasure Garden of Felipe Sagittarius" has a relatively sympathetic AU Adolf Hitler as a sad-sack police commander in Berlin.
* There are a bunch in the ''Literature/BackInTheUSSA'' short stories by Creator/KimNewman and Eugene Byrne. UsefulNotes/AlCapone as American Stalin, Creator/KurtVonnegut as the American Gorbachev, Trotsky's daughter is a commoner who marries the British Crown Prince. [[Creator/LRonHubbard Lafayette Hubbard]], [[Creator/JohnWayne Mitch Morrison]], Charles Lindbergh and UsefulNotes/JosephMcCarthy appear as a propagandistic "troupe of war heroes" in the 1950s Communist America. Not to mention Creator/AleisterCrowley as American Rasputin! One story features Eliot Ness and Melvin Purvis meeting a homeless Texan named [[UsefulNotes/LyndonJohnson L.B. Johnson]] in the compartment of a train travelling to Nevada in 1937. One of his companions is [[Creator/CharlieChaplin a mute and seemingly insane tramp who wore a tiny bowler hat, "too big baggy pants" and "a too-small suit", carried a little walking stick and possessed a "sharp toothbrush moustache and wide, scary eyes" which made him look like Adolf Hitler]]. The Little Tramp's cultural niche is filled by the Russian character the Little Anarchist played by [[UsefulNotes/LeonTrotsky Lev Bronstein]]. Creator/YulBrynner, [[Creator/WoodyAllen Allen Konigsberg]], and Creator/RomanPolanski are all stars of the most popular Russian soap opera as their respective parents / grandparents never immigrated to Communist America. Grand Duchess Anastasia, the aunt of the Tsar, is still alive in 1972 and writes dozens of romantic novels. She's basically this world's Barbara Cartland. Raymond Massey is still an actor but never left his native Canada and is best known for playing American villains in British and Canadian war / propaganda films.
* In the short story "Southern Strategy", where Germany won UsefulNotes/WorldWarI, the League of Nations actually had some teeth and the US was invaded due to their policies towards blacks violating League rules about discrimination, Nixon ends up leading a guerrilla war in the US south, together with Martin Luther King. ItMakesSenseInContext.
** In the same story, UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler is mentioned to be a leading force in German politics... but rather than an Ultranationalist demagogue, he is an anti-tobacco lobbyist and campaigner for animal rights (both causes the real Hitler advocated for).
** One of Mr. King's runners is implied to be a young Music/ElvisPresley, who ended up on the wrong side of the US segregation laws because of his black grandmother, and is mentioned as being an invaluable asset to Mr. King because he is one of the few members of his movement who can pass for white.
* Creator/HowardWaldrop does this a lot. In one of his stories Music/ElvisPresley is a senator, and UsefulNotes/DwightDEisenhower and UsefulNotes/GeorgeSPatton are jazz musicians.
* In the ''Literature/WildCards'' universe, UsefulNotes/FidelCastro is pitching coach for the Brooklyn Dodgers. (In the real world, a long-debunked rumor has Castro trying out for the Washington Senators but ending up going to law school instead.)
** There's a few of these in the series - Music/BuddyHolly is alive and well in the eighties, due to not having gotten on that plane, and Music/FrankZappa is a general in the US Army. Oh, and Creator/SteveJacksonGames is called Jack Stevenson Games and based in Long Island instead of Austin.
* In Norman Spinrad's ''Literature/TheIronDream'', UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler emigrated to the U.S. in 1919 and became a science fiction illustrator, editor and Hugo-winning author for his novel of an embattled eugenic-elitist utopia, ''Lord of the Swastika''.
* There is a Creator/KimNewman short story, "The Germans Won" (referring to [[spoiler:the 1966 World Cup]], not that other thing you might be thinking of), where UsefulNotes/JohnMajor is a bus conductor. In the regular timeline, Major actually applied for a job as a bus conductor in his youth but couldn't do the mental arithmetic the job required[[note]]Major instead went on to become the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who deals with the country's finances[[/note]]; one of the explicitly-mentioned features of the story's alternate history is the adoption of a much simpler schedule of bus fares. And his manager is a man called Jeffrey who "wrote a book once", and likes to say [[Literature/NotAPennyMoreNotAPennyLess "Not a penny more, not a penny less"]] when adding up the totals.
* Averted in Newman's ''other'' "Alternate Major" story, "Slow News Day", in which he expresses his opinion of the then-current Conservative government by suggesting that, if the Nazis had won UsefulNotes/WorldWarII they would be ... [[InSpiteOfANail still in government]]. Major even succeeds the "[[UsefulNotes/MargaretThatcher Iron Duchess]]".
* Polish author Rafał Ziemkiewicz[[note]]nowadays known as a political journalist, but he actually began his literary career as a speculative fiction writer, who then began to increase the political themes to the detriment of the fantastical until he stopped writing fiction altogether[[/note]] wrote several stories using this motif as political satire:
** In one story, a supercomputer shuts off all the input and reshuffles the data inside itself for a couple of hours every day, which essentially makes it an AI unable to express itself otherwise than in piles of data. Accidentally fed a WWII-never-happened alternate history novel, it treats its content as any other dataset and starts spitting out statistical data with lots of people who died in World War II alive, well and hugely successful, and most of primary timeline's political elites ({{exp|y}}ies of our world's politicians) presented as small crooks (some of them in jail). As a result, it has its funding cut by politicians offended by the simulation.
** In another, an accident involving a MentalTimeTravel machine that glitches (it's left vague whether it's tapped into an alternate timeline or never was anything more than a virtual reality thing) presents a world where Stalin became a priest in Georgia (in real life, he did study in a seminar). He actually organizes a vicious cult, but difference in scale means the death toll is much lower.
* The ''Literature/{{Animorphs}}'' novel ''Megamorphs #3'' featured the villain of the story, the Yeerk who formerly held the rank of Visser Four, changing Earth's history as part of his scheme to conquer the world in the present. The story climaxes with the invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944, but by this point, the timeline has been polluted so much that France and Germany are allies against the landing forces (Who the landing forces are is never specified, though they do speak English). In this reality UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler never rose above the rank of corporal and is serving as the driver to the Colonel that is actually relevant to the scene. One character starts to kill him anyway because... well, because he is ''Hitler'', and winds up doing so (while in Hork-Bajir morph with a blade to Hitler's throat, he's hit by a bullet, causing his arm to move) while still debating it. Whether it was accidental or not is left ambiguous.
* In the ''Literature/HisDarkMaterials'' series, the Protestant Revolution never took place in Lyra's world, which somehow resulted in John Calvin becoming ''pope.'' (And apparently that world's popes use their full first names rather than regal titles, too. [[DontExplainTheJoke Go figure.]])
* In Kevin Long's short story "The Man Who Would Not Be King", Western pop culture needed only a few nudges to be completely different. Our hero, who goes by Aaron (he finds his [[Music/ElvisPresley real first name]] embarrassing), is head of security for the opening ceremonies of the world's first spaceport in 1964. Captain Creator/BurtReynolds has returned from his triumphant landing on the moon, a victory for private enterprise (it was funded by Boeing instead of NASA); Nixon is finishing his first term as President after beating Kennedy in 1960; Music/RoyOrbison, Music/JohnnyCash, and Music/BuddyHolly are the reigning kings of rock-and-roll, and a struggling rock ''quintet'' [[Music/TheBeatles from England]] are just beginning their first American tour; and ''[[spoiler:Tommy Smothers]]'' is a Communist agitator who attempts to assassinate Nixon.
* In the ''Literature/LordDarcy'' series, set in a world where the automobile was never invented, Ferrari of Milan is a noted manufacturer of firearms. The Literature/NeroWolfe pastiche even extends this to a ''fictional'' car company; Lord Bontriomphe's gun is a Heron .38, reflecting Wolfe's 1938 Heron sedan.
* Creator/RobertAntonWilson's ''Schrodinger's Cat Trilogy'' lives on this trope, with an alternate Creator/JamesJoyce becoming Pope, UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler remaining a painter, and more besides.
* In Creator/SergeyLukyanenko's ''Literature/SeekersOfTheSky'' duology, several well-known figures in the real-life world are mentioned as still existing in the alternate world of the novels, [[InSpiteOfANail despite radical differences]] in all other areas. Creator/ArnoldSchwarzenegger is a smart but trigger-happy Guard officer of noble blood; Creator/AntoineDeSaintExupery is Count Antoine of Lyon, a retired combat glider pilot who writes poetry in his spare time but refuses to publish it; Creator/GerardDepardieu is Bishop Gegard Lightbringer, a reformed thief, capable of [[HealingHands curing cancer with divine magic]].
* Creator/HBeamPiper's "Literature/HeWalkedAroundTheHorses":
** Wile pretty much everyone else is somewhere different in the alternate history posited by Piper, Talleyrand is still Prime Minister of France (but also a Cardinal now). According to one of the characters (who in our timeline became [[spoiler:the Duke of Wellington]]), "His Eminence, I have always thought, is the sort of fellow who would land on his feet on top of any heap, and who would as little scruple to be Prime Minister to His Satanic Majesty as to His Most Christian Majesty."
** When the universe-hopper describes Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo, no one can figure out who this "Duke of Wellington" chap is supposed to be, as no such title exists.
* One of the main time periods featured in ''The Time Ships'' was an alternate 1940s in which World War I was still ongoing. The Time Traveller meets [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Stubbins Albert Stubbins]], a soldier who mentions that he briefly played professional football before the war put an end to the league.
* Creator/FrederikPohl:
** The novel ''The Coming of the Quantum Cats'' takes place in several alternate universes. UsefulNotes/RonaldReagan is a retired actor-cum-''liberal'' activist (and still married to Jane Wyman) in a Muslim-dominated Earth, while in another Nancy Reagan is President and Reagan is First Gentleman. In that timeline, UsefulNotes/JohnFKennedy was never elected President, and is still a Senator in the 1980s (instead of UsefulNotes/{{Ted|Kennedy}}, who died at Chappaquiddick). One of the main characters is also inferred to have been descended from an alternate Stalin who emigrated to America. Pohl also includes a joking reference to his old friend Creator/IsaacAsimov; in an alternate timeline where Russia never became the USSR, Asimov's family stayed in Russia, where he became a famous surgeon. In reality, Asimov briefly considered becoming a medical doctor, but chose biochemistry instead.
** Pohl also wrote "The Mile High Club", a short story for an Isaac Asimov tribute book. The story featured all the members of the famous SF club the Futurians, still alive in the 1990s. In this timeline, Asimov had convinced FDR to focus on biological research instead of atomic weapons. The post-WWII research boom resulted in a number of medical breakthroughs, and Asimov became more famous than Einstein (who is mentioned in the story as an obscure physicist from Princeton).
* Creator/GeorgeRRMartin in ''Retroperspective'', which is a mix of autobiography and reprints of his old stories, mentions that his debut on professional writing scene was in magazine "Galaxy", but it happened months after they bought his story because it got lost in the office. He notes that there probably is another world in which it was never found and he is now a journalist.
* In the short story "Catch that Zeppelin!", Creator/FritzLeiber writes of a person jumping sideways-and-backwards from 1973 to 1937, replete with Zeppelins, electric cars, a successful Reconstruction, and - most crucially - a completely defeated Germany at the end of 1918. [[spoiler:It is revealed that the alternate-1937 perspective is from a very different Adolf Hitler.]]
* ''Literature/{{Superfolks}}'' has several examples, including Supreme Court Justice [[Franchise/{{Peanuts}} Charlie Brown]], and Roy Mack, head of the defunct [[UsefulNotes/McDonalds Ronaldburger]] chain, who lost his shirt when Americans stopped eating hamburgers and now works a taco cart.
* ''The Mirage'' is about a War on Terror in which the Christian and Islamic countries' roles are flipped, so naturally it features some. UsefulNotes/SaddamHussein is the boss of the Baathists, who are equivalent to TheMafia in this universe, and UsefulNotes/OsamaBinLaden is a war hero, prominent politician, and rumored head of intelligence agency Al-Qaeda. LBJ takes the role of Hussein, as dictator of the Christian States of America.
* A few instances of this crop up in Creator/OrsonScottCard's ''Literature/TheTalesOfAlvinMaker'', primarily with figures from American history.
** Creator/WilliamBlake is a [[TheStoryteller roguish traveling storyteller]] with no permanent home or job, who apparently moved to America as a young man. He has some kind of vaguely-defined prophetic abilities, and he serves as TheMentor to the protagonist in the first book.
** UsefulNotes/WilliamHenryHarrison is a brutish, power-hungry warlord with a militant hatred of Native Americans, and he tries to turn the fort that he commands into his own private fortress.
** UsefulNotes/GeorgeWashington, instead of leading the movement for American independence, became a land-holding nobleman loyal to King George (calling himself "Lord Potomac"), and led the fight to crush the American rebels trying to secede from the Crown. He was eventually executed for refusing to fight his fellow Americans any longer and is remembered as a martyr for American independence.
** Benedict Arnold, ironically enough, was the Commander-in-Chief of the American rebel army, bringing him into direct conflict with Washington on the battlefield.
** Creator/BenjaminFranklin, instead of being a [[EnsembleDarkhorse minor but well-loved figure]] in the American independence movement, orchestrated it singlehandedly. He was the author of the American Compact, which the independent American colonies (those not loyal to the Crown or the Lord Protector) used to officially unite and form the United States.
* The anthology ''Literature/AlternateKennedys'' has UsefulNotes/JohnFKennedy and his family in many different circumstances. The cover depicts the hit record "[[Music/TheBeatles Meet the Kennedys]]", featuring John, UsefulNotes/{{Ted|Kennedy}}, Joe, and [[UsefulNotes/RobertFKennedy Bobby]]. Another story has Joe Sr. stay in Hollywood, where his son gets the lead on ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries''.
* A marginal case in ''[[Creator/AlastairReynolds Century Rain]]'': UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler has survived a much-shortened UsefulNotes/WorldWarII (since the French were paying attention and headed the Germans off at the pass). He's an old man dying of cancer in a low-security prison hospital. A protagonist, passing by, notes that he was no worse than several other dictators making trouble at the time and muses that he may as well be left alone to feed the ducks.
* Done various times in ''Literature/UnionAndLiberty'' including Creator/WaltWhitman becoming a senator and a vice presidential candidate, and Paul Gauguin coming to the United States and starting a chain of department stores.
* ''Literature/RedsARevolutionaryTimeline'' has Sean Hannity as a very patriotic and jingoistic writer about the history of [[ChummyCommies the United American Socialist Republics]]. It also uses many prominent American politicians and activists as members of the communist regime.
** After his attempt at a career in politics never really manages to take off, Creator/NewtGingrich instead throws himself in writing political fiction and science fiction. He eventually has a popular breakthrough as an author with a series of military techno-thrillers in the 1980s, and effectively becomes the timeline's version of Creator/TomClancy.
** One of the most dramatic examples is UsefulNotes/GeorgeSPatton, who fought with distinction in the Second American Civil War... ''for the Socialists''. [[spoiler:In this alternate history, the USA entered the First World War three years earlier, fighting in some of the bloodiest engagements and taking roughly a million casualties. Patton returned home [[ShellShockedVeteran badly traumatised]] and very, ''very'' bitter.]]
** Nixon himself makes several appearances, and though the story hasn't examined that part of the timeline in depth yet, it is all but outright stated that he will one day become the Premier of the UASR. There are also several hints that during his time in office, he was just about as crooked as his real-life counterpart, and gains himself a legacy as one of the ultimate DirtyCommunists.
* Pretty much every character in ''Literature/NoMansLandTalesFromTheWeirdWars''.
* Done lots of times in ''Literature/NoSpanishCivilWarIn1936''. Leon Trotsky breaking with Marxism, Lister working together with UsefulNotes/FranciscoFranco, Franco dying for the Republic, Millan Astray spying the Nazis, Manuel Fraga making the PSOE a viable option... not to talk about the Spanish president Buenaventura Freaking Durruti. Barry Goldwater is a different kind of libertarian in this world. [[UsefulNotes/CheGuevara Ernesto Guevara]] writes books about political systems.
* ''Literature/AMorePersonalUnion'' includes such personages as UsefulNotes/FrancisDrake, colonist captain turned revenge-driven crazed pirate, and poet-mercenary captain [[Creator/WilliamShakespeare Black Bill Shakespeare]].
* ''Literature/MaleRising'' liberally uses this trope with surprising results with figures ranging from UsefulNotes/TheodoreRoosevelt to UsefulNotes/LeonTrotsky following different lives (and in Roosevelt's case, [[ManlyGay his sexuality]]).
* In the SteamPunk novel ''Literature/TheDifferenceEngine'', Benjamin Disraeli is a popular romance author, Creator/JohnKeats does artwork for the cinema and Creator/LordByron became prime minister.
* The novella ''The Unreformed Kingdom'' contains appearances by the elitist US Ambassador to Britain, George W. Bush, and the Mayor of Doncaster, a certain [[Series/TopGear Jeremiah Clarkson]].
* ''Literature/OneNationUnderJupiter'': UsefulNotes/TheProphetMuhammad was an atheist, Martin Luther was an attorney, and [[UsefulNotes/TheRulersOfNorthKorea Kim il-Sung]] was a staunch anti-authoritarian.
* Creator/JackVance's novelette "Rumfuddle" is about manipulating parallel histories for laughs; in one resulting timeline, all the top Nazis work at a kosher resort hotel. The protagonist and his wife turn out to be alternates of child-killers Gilles de Rais and Elisabeth Bathory.
* ''Literature/LookToTheWest'' has Mozart as a general [[spoiler:who dies defending Vienna from the French]]. Alexander Hamilton is Lord President of the Empire of North America, and Napoleon Bonaparte's father emigrated to Britain, resulting in "Leo Bone" joining the Royal Navy...
* In the utopian (for Spain) short novel ''Fuego sobre San Juan'', [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francisco_Giner_de_los_Rios Francisco Giner]] is the Spanish Prime Minister in 1912, UsefulNotes/TheodoreRoosevelt died in battle at San Juan Hill, [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valeriano_Weyler Valeriano Weyler]] made the "[[AllohistoricalAllusion Big Stick]]" speech, and UsefulNotes/FranciscoFranco was an unfortunate five-year-old boy who died in a school fire when the Americans bombed Ferrol.
* ''Literature/PlayerTwoStart'', set in a world where Creator/{{Nintendo}} and Creator/{{Sony}}'s plans to make the [[UsefulNotes/SuperNintendoEntertainmentSystem SNES-CD]] came to fruition, spotlights a number of famous figures who wind up having different career paths.
** Polly Klaas survives her kidnapping attempt, and the circumstances of how she did so (her would-be kidnapper tripped over her SNES-CD console, buying her father time to subdue him) earns her and her family FifteenMinutesOfFame once Nintendo hears about her story. She becomes a minor [[BeenThereShapedHistory Forrest Gump-esque figure]] over the years; she and her family move to Littleton, Colorado afterwards, where she's instrumental in causing the UsefulNotes/{{Columbine}} massacre to go out with a whimper, and in her adult life, she becomes a researcher of video games at Stanford.
** Related to the above, Dylan Klebold never gets involved in the Columbine plot due to Klaas' influence. WordOfGod is that, by 2015, he's a detective with the UsefulNotes/{{Denver}} Police Department.
** Jennifer Stigile, a voice actress in our world, here wins the first season of ''Series/AmericanIdol'' instead of Music/KellyClarkson.
** Creator/AlexHirsch, the creator of ''WesternAnimation/FishHooks'' and ''WesternAnimation/GravityFalls'' in our world, instead becomes an indie game developer -- together with his twin sister Ariel.
** UsefulNotes/AlGore and Joe Lieberman are elected President and Vice President in 2000, that [[DecidedByOneVote famous squeaker of a Presidential election]] going the other way instead. Furthermore, Gore does it facing off against Republican candidate UsefulNotes/JohnMcCain instead of UsefulNotes/GeorgeWBush.
** Music/AvrilLavigne, after suffering a bout of laryngitis during her childhood, takes up skateboarding while her voice recovers... and soon discovers that she's really, really good at it. By 2000, instead of becoming a pop star, she's become a professional skateboarder who's featured in ''VideoGame/TonyHawksProSkater 2''. In other words, [[{{Pun}} she was a Sk8er Grrrl]].
** In our world, Chris-chan is the creator of the [[BileFascination infamously bad]] webcomic ''Webcomic/{{Sonichu}}''. In this world, a Chris Chandler who never [[UsefulNotes/{{Transgender}} transitioned]] becomes [[spoiler:a spree killer, responsible for its equivalent of UsefulNotes/{{Columbine}} (as noted above, the actual Columbine massacre wound up fizzling out in this world), most notably with how it reignites [[MurderSimulators the debate over violent video games]]. Many details of Chris' life, including [[StalkerWithACrush his "girl quest"]] and an alternate version of the ''Sonichu'' comic (which also features characters from [[DifferentWorldDifferentMovies a hit Nintendo franchise that never existed in our world]]), take on a far darker meaning in this version of events]].
** Creator/ShondaRhimes' Hollywood ambitions never bear fruit, and she instead becomes an English teacher at Manchester High School in the UsefulNotes/{{Richmond|Virginia}} suburb of Midlothian, Virginia. [[spoiler:One of her students is the aforementioned Chandler, whose increasingly rude, sexist, and all-around creepy behavior leads her to [[TheCassandra try (and fail)]] to report him. Sadly, she winds up as one of the 21 victims of the massacre.]]
** Music/ChristinaGrimmie, who in our world enjoyed some minor fame as a singer and Website/YouTube celebrity before being gunned down by a LoonyFan, is mentioned in passing as being one of the hosts of the relaunched version of ''[=GameTV=]'', an Creator/{{MTV}} series about video games reminiscent of our world's ''Series/XPlay'', in 2017.
** Andrew Cunanan, in our world a SerialKiller who murdered five people (including, most infamously, fashion designer UsefulNotes/GianniVersace) over the course of three months in 1997, instead becomes a ''spree'' killer, going on a shooting spree in Beverly Hills on July 31, 1997. Seven people are killed and nineteen are injured; among those wounded in the shooting is talk show host Creator/JayLeno.
** It is mentioned in passing that, as of 2012, Creator/DrewBarrymore is the host of ''Series/LateNight''.
** Race car driver Ayrton Senna, having avoided the 1994 crash that killed him in our world, goes on to become the spokesman for the ''VideoGame/GranTurismo'' series.
** An odd aversion: UsefulNotes/MichaelJordan never takes his infamous detour into playing UsefulNotes/{{baseball}} due to his father James never getting gunned down (the criminals who killed him in our world instead go after a truck full of video game consoles).
* One important character of Jack Yeovil's ''Literature/DarkFuture'' series (part of the literature made for the universe made by Games Workshop) is retired ColonelBadass (and current government-employed bounty hunter) [[Music/ElvisPresley Elvis Aaron Presley]], who decided to quit his drug addiction and focus on his military career (because a fatal concert riot at Madison Square Garden in 1961 ended with the outlawing of RockAndRoll). One scene of the series is him having a MushroomSamba wherein he views how the real Elvis lived his last days, and he's disgusted at how the drugs completely turned him into a waste of a man.
* ''[[https://www.amazon.com/What-Ifs-American-History-Historians/dp/0425198189/ref=sr_1_1 What Ifs of American History]]'', a compilation of counterfactual accounts written by prominent historians, includes one by Robert O'Connell about the Cuban Missile Crisis. The in-story author of the report is historian Creator/NewtGingrich.
* In ''Literature/ForWantOfANail'', Abraham Lincoln is cast as one of two lawyers who helped develop the Indiana Northern railway line
* In one of the realities of ''Literature/TheAdventuresOfTomStrangerInterdimensionalInsuranceAgent'', Creator/AdamBaldwin was elected President of the US after a Libertarian wave, following the phenomenal success of a certain [[Series/{{Firefly}} sci-fi western series]]. Guess who narrates the audiobook.
* Due to Creator/JamesDean being drafted into a war with martian ants in ''Literature/GoMutants'', his movie career never took off apart from a few [[BMovie B Movies]] when he was older.
* In Creator/TerryBisson's ''Literature/FireOnTheMountain'', General Harriet Tubman and John Brown led a successful slave revolt in the American south and established the independent socialist state of Nova Africa. Abraham Lincoln is remembered as a former Whig Congressman who tried and failed to reunite Nova Africa with the United States, which itself becomes a socialist democracy after Lincoln's death. Karl Marx did not write any of the books he wrote in reality after 1859, but was a prominent foreign supporter of Nova Africa. And, finally, a hundred years after Tubman and Brown's raid; the protagonist of the story encounters a gas station mechanic and motoring enthusiast named Elvis Presley.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
* On Creator/TheHistoryChannel's ''TheUniverse'', in an alternate universe, UsefulNotes/GeorgeWBush never became Governor or President. Instead, he became [[UsefulNotes/MajorLeagueBaseball Commissioner of Baseball]]. That was actually based on (almost) real history: Bush had wanted to be the Commissioner of Baseball, but couldn't get the job, so he went into politics instead.
* A ''Series/SaturdayNightLive'' opener that pretended to be "President UsefulNotes/AlGore"'s State of the Union address, made a comment that Bush was the Commissioner of Baseball, and had vowed to hunt down steroid users "wherever they may hide".
* ''Series/DoctorWho'':
** In one episode, the entire Universe except Earth and the Sun [[spoiler:(actually an infinitely exploding TARDIS)]] are erased from history (long story), creating an alternate reality that consists of Earth alone in the void. In this universe, stars are a loony belief held by fringe "Star Cults", for which Richard Dawkins is a spokesman or other important figure.
** One of the Big Finish audio plays did this with an in-universe character, introducing an alternate-universe version of Davros, the creator of the Daleks, who had grown up on a Skaro at peace and become a loving family man rather than a genocdidal megalomaniac. [[spoiler:Unfortunately, he gets merged with a bunch of ''other'' Davroses by the Daleks, and his identity does not survive the merger.]]
* A number of these appear ''Series/StargateSG1''.
** The two-part episode "Moebius", in which the team travels back in time 5,000 years for the first 20 minutes of the episode, and then the story follows their counterparts in the alternate timeline created. Despite a point of divergence 5,000 years back, [[InSpiteOfANail all the main cast are clearly the same people]], with Carter and Daniel in much more boring jobs. Averted with Teal'c, who's still First Prime of Apophis. Zigzagged with O'Neil, who now runs a tour boat, but his pre-Stargate miltary career was implied to be unchanged. Also, [[SleazyPolitician Robert Kinsey]] is now President while Henry Hayes is Secretary of the Interior.
** And then of course there's the alternate reality seen in season 10 where Hank Landry is the President instead of being head of Stargate Command. Rodney [=McKay=], meanwhile, went into the private sector and became a billionaire.
** In ''Film/StargateContinuum'', the alternate Carter had joined NASA, and [[HeroicSacrifice died heroically]] in a space accident. Which makes a little more sense than her working a minor desk job at the Pentagon, given her talents and family connections. Before he found out about the Stargate Program, her father had offered to get her into the astronaut corps.
** The ''Series/StargateAtlantis'' episode "Vegas" featured an alternate reality where Sheppard left the Air Force after the incident in Afghanistan and ended up as a cop in Vegas. Also, [=McKay=] appears to be a typical government bureaucrat, in addition to his scientific genius. He's also much more confident in his interactions with people.
* ''Series/LoisAndClark'' had an alternate universe where Creator/CharltonHeston is President of the United States, and the nation is full of gun nuts waging open warfare on the streets. Music/ElvisPresley [[ElvisLives is still alive]] and also held the office sometime in the past.
* In the French 70's mini-series ''Le voyageur des siècles'' (The traveller of centuries), the protagonists prevent the French Revolution and end up in an alternate 19th century where UsefulNotes/NapoleonBonaparte is a clothier whose wife mocks him for trying to imagine what the French Army should do to win the war, while Dr Guillotin is known for patenting a machine for cutting sausages.
* On the ''Series/SaturdayNightLive'' hosted by Ron Reagan, in one skit, ''a la'' ''Back to the Future'', he lives with his parents, Democrats and retired film stars Ronald and Nancy Reagan. When he travels back to the '50s, he causes Ron Senior to switch to the Republican party and drop acting for politics and when he goes back to the future, he arrives back at "his" house, now occupied by another family whose government assistance was cut by President Reagan. The single mother isn't too happy with him.
* In a segment on ''Series/RealTimeWithBillMaher'' called "It's a Significantly Less Wonderful Life", Maher re-imagined the lives of Republican figures if they hadn't been born into wealth and privilege. UsefulNotes/MittRomney was a Mexican immigrant and greeter at Staples[[note]]Mitt Romney's father was born in a Mormon colony in Mexico, and he is a major investor in Staples in RealLife[[/note]], Paul Ryan was fired from his long-term job at UsefulNotes/McDonalds[[note]]where he actually did have a summer job as a teenager[[/note]] after taking toys out of Happy Meals, UsefulNotes/GeorgeWBush was a homeless Vietnam vet[[note]]Bush's Vietnam record and allegations of draft dodging dogged him throughout his presidency, while it's known for a fact he served in the Air National Guard; questions remain about his service.[[/note]], and UsefulNotes/DonaldTrump was a retired elementary school janitor who worked at [[UsefulNotes/KentuckyFriedChicken KFC]].
* In-universe example in ''Series/TheManInTheHighCastle'', where in the fourth season [[spoiler:John Smith finds out that in an alternate world where the Allies won the Second World War, he left the military and became a traveling insurance salesman.]]
* In one episode of ''Series/{{Sliders}}'', Nixon was a blood-sucking vampire. Literally. A DeletedScene from the pilot mentioned that Ronald Reagan was the Mayor of San Francisco in 1995 and that he was best known as an actor for playing the first Howard "Mr. C" Cunningham in ''Series/HappyDays''. Given that it featured at least two or three parallel universes in every episode, these sorts of in-jokes were fairly frequent. For instance, in one universe Music/KurtCobain is still alive in 1996 and has just released a Christmas album while Donny and Marie Osmond's latest album is described as "filthy". Throughout the series, many real-life people who never got to the White House are said to be president in the various universes including J. Edgar Hoover, Oliver North, Susan B. Anthony, Joycelyn Elders, Creator/HowardStern, and Creator/EdWood, who was considered one of the greatest Presidents in US history in his universe.
** One of the more plausible alternate Presidents of the series was Adlai Stevenson in "[[Recap/SlidersS05E09TheReturnOfMaggieBeckett The Return of Maggie Beckett]]". In the parallel universe featured in that episode, the Germans broke the Allied lines at the Battle of the Bulge in 1944 and World War II continued until 1947. Given that Eisenhower was disgraced because of this failure, Stevenson won the 1952 presidential election (which he lost to Eisenhower on Earth Prime) and revealed that the US government had made contact with aliens called the Reticulans at Roswell in 1947.
** In the first parallel universe that Quinn visits in "[[Recap/SlidersS01E01E02Pilot Pilot]]", UsefulNotes/JohnFKennedy is serving his ninth term as President in 1995 but does not intend to run for re-election in 1996. His First Lady is Creator/MarilynMonroe. Music/ElvisPresley is still alive and regularly performs at the Mirage in Las Vegas.
** In "[[Recap/SlidersS01E06SummerOfLove Summer of Love]]", [[Music/SnoopDogg Snoop Hippie Dogg]] is a musician on a world where the counterculture movement took place in the 1990s instead of the 1960s.
** In "[[Recap/SlidersS01E08TheWeakerSex The Weaker Sex]]", Jane Pauley is the Pope on a world where the traditional gender roles are reversed.
** In "[[Recap/SlidersS01E09TheKingIsBack The King is Back]]", Music/MichaelJackson is a rapper. He was a member of Music/PublicEnemy, left the band and later rejoined.
** In "[[Recap/SlidersS02E04TheGoodTheBadAndTheWealthy The Good, the Bad and the Wealthy]]", UsefulNotes/LyndonJohnson and UsefulNotes/GeorgeHWBush are former Presidents of the Republic of Texas.
** In "[[Recap/SlidersS02E06TimeAgainAndWorld Time Again and World]]", Julius and Ethel Rosenberg [[WhoShotJFK assassinated]] UsefulNotes/JohnFKennedy.
** In "[[Recap/SlidersS02E09Obsession Obsession]]", a young psychic had a vision of the assassination of UsefulNotes/AbrahamLincoln in 1865 and was able to prevent it. Lincoln was so impressed that he created the office of Prime Oracle and charged him with the responsibility of predicting natural and man-made disasters. In this world, UsefulNotes/JohnFKennedy died in 1995 at the age of 78. The attendees at his funeral included his brother UsefulNotes/RobertFKennedy and UsefulNotes/MartinLutherKingJr
** In "[[Recap/SlidersS02E10Greatfellas Greatfellas]]", the series' co-creator Tracy Tormé's [[RealLifeRelative real-life father]] Mel Tormé is a country-western singer, a Bible thumper and a government informant. According to the younger Tormé, "everything he's not in this life." Whether he still has a son named Tracy in this world isn't mentioned.
** In "[[Recap/SlidersS02E13AsTimeGoesBy As Time Goes By]]", Ruth Bader Ginsburg is the Chief Justice of the United States rather than an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court.
** In "[[Recap/SlidersS03E09ThePrinceOfSlides The Prince of Slides]]", it is never stated outright but it is heavily implied that UsefulNotes/ThomasJefferson was the one who established the American monarchy after the colonies achieved their independence from the British Empire and that he reigned as the first King of the United States with Sally Hemmings as his queen. The evidence for this is the recently deceased King Thomas and the fact that Danielle's title Duchess of Hemmingshire.
** In "[[Recap/SlidersS03E24Stoker Stoker]]", Music/JanisJoplin is still alive in 1997 and a health nut while no one has ever heard of Music/BobDylan.
** In "[[Recap/SlidersS04E02ProphetsAndLoss Prophets and Loss]]", no one has ever heard of UsefulNotes/AbrahamLincoln. The sliders' money is believed to be counterfeit as it bears his image. Similarly, Maggie has never heard of UsefulNotes/ThomasJefferson, indicating that he either never existed or never became a major figure in the American Revolution on her world, which was seen in "[[Recap/SlidersS03E16E17TheExodus The Exodus]]".
** In "[[Recap/SlidersS04E05WorldKiller World Killer]]", it is mentioned that Creator/ClarkGable and Creator/HumphreyBogart were never film stars in Maggie's world.
** In "[[Recap/SlidersS04E10Asylum Asylum]]", Creator/CharltonHeston is the President of California, which became an independent country after the Kromagg invasion, and is an advocate of gun control. (In reality, Heston supported the Gun Control Act 1968 before he became a gun advocate and President of the NRA so this version of him seemingly never changed his mind on the issue.) In the same episode, this trope is combined with LesCollaborateurs and HistoricalVillainUpgrade in the case of UsefulNotes/MargaretThatcher. After the Kromaggs invaded, Thatcher collaborated with the Kromaggs when they invaded her Earth. She agreed to give them access to the oil reserves in the North Sea in exchange for leaving the United Kingdom alone. After the end of the Kromagg War, collaborators came to be known as "Thatchers."
** In "[[Recap/SlidersS04E15NetWorth Net Worth]]", it is mentioned that Creator/AudreyHepburn was a famous stage actress on Colin's world, which as previously seen in "[[Recap/SlidersS04E06OhBrotherWhereArtThou Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?]]" is about 140-150 years behind Earth Prime. She was Colin's first crush. His parents had a photograph of her in their house.
** In "[[Recap/SlidersS04E18WayOutWest Way Out West]]", Ellie Starr mentions that her father fought with Norman Schwarzkopf at Gettysburg on a world which resembled the Wild West. On this world, the UsefulNotes/AmericanCivilWar seemingly happened about 140 years later than on Earth Prime.
** In "[[Recap/SlidersS04E21RoadsTaken Roads Taken]]", Robert Dornan is the Governor of California, which is under siege by troops from the UN and Mexico.
** In "[[Recap/SlidersS04E22Revelations Revelations]]", UsefulNotes/JackieRobinson was the first black man to be accepted as a saxophonist, which had previously been an all-white art form. He is the subject of the biography ''Bebop King: The Life of Jackie Robinson - The Greatest Saxophone Player This World Has Ever Seen''.
* ''Series/{{Supernatural}}''. In "My Heart Will Go On", Balthazar has created an alternate universe where the ''[[UsefulNotes/RMSTitanic Titanic]]'' never sunk. When confronted as to why he did this, he claims it was because he hated [[Film/Titanic1997 the movie]].
-->'''Sam:''' Wait, so you saved a cruise liner because--\\
'''Balthazar:''' Because that God-awful Music/CelineDion song made me want to smite myself.\\
'''Sam:''' Who's Celine Dion?\\
'''Balthazar:''' Oh, she's a destitute lounge singer somewhere in Quebec, and let's keep it that way, please.
* Occurs in-universe in the ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' episode "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS6E14Tapestry Tapestry]]". Picard gets a chance to change his past, only to find that in his altered present, he's an altogether unremarkable junior science officer with no real potential for advancement. He quickly begs to be allowed to go back and restore his past.
* Another Q-related example takes place in the ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'' episode "[[Recap/StarTrekVoyagerS2E18DeathWish Death Wish]]", in which a suicidal member of the Q-continuum (nicknamed Quinn) requests sanctuary on ''Voyager'', with the Q from ''TNG'' acting as the representative of the continuum establishment. To show how much influence a Q has on history, he calls forth "witnesses" from the past, including Commander Riker, a hippie from Woodstock, and Sir Isaac Newton, and reveals that [[BeenThereShapedHistory Quinn was the one who dropped the famous apple on Newton's head]]. Q explains that had Quinn not done so, Newton would have died alone and forgotten in a Liverpool debtor's prison, a suspect in [[DisposableSexWorker several prostitute murders]].
* In ''Series/{{Timeless}}'', as a result of actions by time travelers, Alice Paul (a key figure of the women's suffrage movement) isn't even a footnote in history in the new timeline, with her role being taken up by Grace Humiston (in addition to her OTL role as a detective).
* In ''Series/TheFlash2014'', H.R. Wells, who comes from the alternate world of Earth-19, mentions "an incident involving Vice President UsefulNotes/AlCapone."
** Other alternate Earths include worlds where Beyonce Knowles is a United States Senator and Weird Al Yankovic is a world-renowned poet.
* In ''Series/LegendsOfTomorrow'', an attempt by the titular team to rescue their amnesiac leader Rip Hunter from the LegionOfDoom leads them to a film school in the 1960s. They rescue Rip, but they suddenly find that Ray Palmer and Nate Heywood have lost their skills in science and history, instead becoming a heart surgeon and a yoga instructor. It turns out, that the film school was the same one that Creator/GeorgeLucas attended, and the attack by the legion scared him so badly that he dropped out and became an insurance salesman. He was even awarded "Salesman of the Year" in [[Film/ANewHope 1977]], [[Film/TheEmpireStrikesBack 1980]], and [[Film/ReturnOfTheJedi 1983]]. Without ''Franchise/StarWars'' and ''Film/RaidersOfTheLostArk'', Ray and Nate never pursued their respective careers. Fortunately, the Legends are able to convince George to stay and restore their teammate's powers.
* In ''[[Recap/BlackadderSS3BlackadderBackAndForth Blackadder Back And Forth]]'', Blackadder gets Shakespeare's autograph and then beats him up as revenge for having to study his plays in school. He leaves his pen behind and returns to a new timeline where Creator/WilliamShakespeare never wrote any plays and is mildly famous for inventing the ballpoint pen.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Tabletop Games]]
* ''TabletopGame/GURPSAlternateEarths'' has lots of this:
** In the first volume, there's Malcolm Little (Malcolm X) as VP of the rest-US in a world where the CSA successfully seceded. David Duke as POTUS in a world where [[UsefulNotes/NaziGermany The Nazis]] win UsefulNotes/WorldWarII and the US become their fascist satellite. Jabir ibn Hayyan as a Roman chemist inventing mustard gas in 767. Swedish king [[UsefulNotes/CarolusRex Charles XII]] invading Britain. Roman emperor Heraclius founding a new empire in Africa after Constantinople falls. And UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler ending up in an insane asylum painting more watercolors.
** The sequel had some more. [[Creator/AynRand Alissa Rosenbaum]] writing novels about heroic rail builders in Nationalist Republican Russia. Japanese admiral Hiyoshimaru fighting European pirates for the Ming emperors. St. Bernhard of Clairvaux and St. Dominic de Guzman converting still-pagan Scandinavia to a somewhat different Christianity. Ibn Sina inventing calculus in 1006. Jan Masaryk elected Archon of an Austrian empire turned republic. And finally, Otakar Przemysl kicking out the Mongolian oppressors from the UsefulNotes/HolyRomanEmpire in Centrum.
** One of the most insane examples is [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_Skorzeny Otto Skorzeny]], head of the elite cross-time strike force ISWAT. In his home parallel (the one with Jan Masaryk), he was a freedom fighter for the Republican Alliance that emerged from the wreckage of the Austrian Empire. He's a firm believer in liberty and equality for everyone, and he absolutely ''hates'' ThoseWackyNazis. Especially other versions of himself.
** In ''TabletopGame/GURPSInfiniteWorldsBritannica6'', a setting sourcebook using the same framework that describes an alternate {{Steampunk}} timeline stemming from a different history of the British royal family, one of the example characters is Charles Dickens, a journalist specializing in science and technology. "He wrote a few short stories, most concerning heroic engineers, but never found much money in it."
* ''TabletopGame/{{Exalted}}'' does this with its own fictional characters in ''Shards of an Exalted Dream'', a supplement that presents alternate-universe takes on the setting. In particular, the Scarlet Empress (who rules the world in the canon setting) is shown in numerous lesser roles on the cover and as a Franchise/{{Gundam}}-inspired mecha pilot in [[Series/BattlestarGalactica2003 Gunstar Autochthonia]]; Kejak Chejop, who is in charge of the anti-Solar Bronze Faction in the default setting, is the head of its ideologically opposed pro-Solar Gold Faction in the modern one.
* Marcus Rowland (author of ''Forgotten Futures'') wrote a scenario for the ''Series/DoctorWho'' RPG ''TabletopGame/TimeLord'', called "[[http://homepage.ntlworld.com/forgottenfutures/album/conqueror.htm Curse of the Conqueror]]", in which John Wayne becomes President instead of Ronald Reagan and starts World War III.
* The card game ''TabletopGame/{{Chrononauts}}'' features Nixon and MLK teaming up in an alternate reality -- as President and Vice-President.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Theme Parks]]
* Nearly [[PlayingWithATrope played straight]] in [[Ride/DisneyThemeParks EPCOT Center's World of Motion]]. A scene in the attraction had guests pass a used car lot with a salesman chatting up customers. As an in-joke, the designers originally intended to use the Richard Nixon face mask from the Hall of Presidents for the salesman, [[UnbuiltTrope invoking this trope nearly fifteen years]] before the {{Trope Namer|s}}. However, CEO at the time Card Walker had ties to the Republican Party, and [[ExecutiveMeddling management was afraid]] that he wouldn't be amused seeing Richard Nixon the Used Car Salesman in the attraction. Nixon was eventually added to the attraction, though in a blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameo in the Egyptian scene.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Video Games]]
* The ''VideoGame/KaiserreichLegacyOfTheWeltkrieg'' mod to ''VideoGame/HeartsOfIronII'' does this a lot (because it's trying to avoid using the OTL historical figures): UsefulNotes/WinstonChurchill is a novelist who writes about [[StoryWithinAStory alternate history]], UsefulNotes/JosefStalin is the minister of security for Georgia; UsefulNotes/BenitoMussolini is minister of transportation in the Socialist Republic of Italy; UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler is dead and his [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarI wartime]] letters home (along with those of many other soldiers') has been published under the title ''Mein Kampf'' by Ernst Röhm, who for some reason wears a Creator/CharlieChaplin-style mustache, and UsefulNotes/FranklinDelanoRoosevelt is also dead, from the polio infection that left him paralyzed in our timeline. They've all been replaced by minor historical figures or people who weren't involved in politics, for example Britain is ruled by Oswald Mosley, now a leader of a radical ''left'' faction which includes [[Creator/GeorgeOrwell Eric Blair]] and a gay Creator/CSLewis.
** Mussolini can subvert this trope - it is quite possible for him to end up as the self-described totalitarian leader of an Italian state. It just happens to be a far-left ('National Syndicalism') state rather than a far-right (Fascism) one.
** Especially since Mussolini started out as a leftist, then had a change of heart. Fascism in general is well known for being the exemplar of PanderingToTheBase in terms of ideologies: it was whatever the public wanted it to be.
*** But as the old (though false) saying goes, he made the [[RepressiveButEfficient trains run on time]], therefore making him being minister of transportation a HistoricalInJoke.
* In ''VideoGame/TitanicAdventureOutOfTime'', if the player escapes the sinking ship with a painting, it turns out that it was actually painted by Hitler and being the only artwork recovered from the ship makes him internationally famous. This, in turn, keeps him on the path of artistry and prevents him from forming the Nazi party, thus preventing World War II.
* In ''Videogame/WolfensteinTheNewOrder'', one of the resistance members if Wyatt was spared in the beginning is a man known only as "J" who looks and sounds a whole lot like Music/JimiHendrix [[spoiler: and is eventually revealed to BE Jimi, when he [[DyingMomentOfAwesome goes out blasting the Star Spangled Banner as loud as he can]]]]. In [[Videogame/WolfensteinIITheNewColossus the sequel]], BJ ends up meeting an actor who is most likely Ronald Reagan, who in a Nazi-conquered world did not pursue politics.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Comics]]
* ''Webcomic/RoswellTexas'' has a lot of them. Lyndon B. Johnson is apparently a small-time crook of some, Hitler immigrated to Texas and took art lessons from that Diego Riviera, and ended up marrying his and Frida Kahlo's daughter. (The Nazi party still came to power.) Also, Charles Lindbergh and his son are president of the Federated States at different points in the story.
* In ''Webcomic/{{Homestuck}}'', [[spoiler:[[ResetButton the Alpha universe]] is a reset of Earth intended to make the eventual players of [[TheGamePlaysYou Sburb]] more apt to win the game, and as such sports numerous differences in combination with outside influence on the universe, resulting in this trope (generally PlayedForLaughs). Harry Anderson became a private investigator due to not getting a role on ''Series/NightCourt'' because Alpha!John Egbert got the judge's seat instead, Guy Fieri joined the Supreme Court, Donald Glover won an Oscar for the role of [[Webcomic/SweetBroAndHellaJeff Geromy]] before being assassinated, and the Music/InsaneClownPosse are DUAL PRESIDENTS. Not President and VP. Dual Juggalo Presidents. Oh, and Betty Crocker is a former [[GodSaveUsFromTheQueen alien queen]] who owns a multiglobal empire, but that was true in the ''other'' universe. (It's implied she jumped between them.)]]
** Although [[spoiler:Betty Crocker/The Condesce was the one who set most of that up]].
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Original]]
%%* A major theme in ''WebOriginal/IllBethisad''.
* ''Website/TheOnion'':
** "[[http://www.theonion.com/articles/alternateuniverse-james-hetfield-named-taco-bell-e,740/ Alternate Universe James Hetfield Named Taco Bell Employee of the Month.]]"
** "[[http://www.theonion.com/articles/taylor-swift-enters-alternate-universe-to-date-bod,32698/ Taylor Swift Enters Alternate Universe To Date Body-Building George Harrison.]]" And Gandhi played for the Seattle Seahawks.
* ''Literature/AGiantSuckingSound'', Ross Perot wins the 1992 election, which alters the career paths of many famous people.
** President Perot himself is followed by Presidents [[spoiler:Ann Richards, Bob Kerrey, ''Donald Trump'', Russ Feingold, and Jeb Bush.]] [[HilariousInHindsight One out of five ain't bad.]]
** Vice President UsefulNotes/JerryBrown.
** Chief of Staff, Senator, and Vice-President [[Series/{{CSINY}} Francis "Hill" Harper]].
** Senators Ralph Nader and Creator/StephenColbert.
** Governors Creator/WarrenBeatty and Donald Trump.
** Congressmen (and later Governor) Jello Biafra, Al Sharpton, and Creator/JonStewart.
** Creator/HarrisonFord stars in ''Film/SchindlersList'', while Creator/NataliePortman pursues psychology.
* The short film ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwH3Xr6uyG0 It's A Wonderful Life! (with captalism)]], has the protagonist (vaguely hipsterish middle-class youth) gets transported by a wish-granting fairy to a world without capitalism (i.e. where America is a Soviet-esque hell-hole). When confronted with the fact he now has no Platform/XBox, is told by the fairy that that greedy Bill Gates works in a bowling ball factory somewhere so win some, lose some, right?
* ''WebVideo/TheMonumentMythos'', given that it takes place in an alternate universe, has several examples:
** The sculpter of the Statue of Freedom, Thomas Crawford, put his own (and later his own daughter's) remains inside the statue in order to control it as a way to exact his revenge on America.
** Creator/JamesDean, instead of dying in car crash, became the 37th president of the US instead of Nixon.
** John D. Rockerfeller briefly worked in the oil industry before becoming president of the US and never was an oil tycoon. [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone Though after what happened, he wished he was.]]
** Creator/WaltDisney apparently found his purpose driving an ambulance during World War I, as one of the best hospitals in America is the Walt Disney Medical Center.
** Al Gore and Hillary Clinton won the 2000 and 2020 presidential elections.
** The most significant change is undoubtedly George Washington's role. While he still serves as a founding father for the United States, [[spoiler:he became an entity living in Earth's core known as the "Horned Serpent" after climbing one of the [[GaiasVengeance Special Trees]] inside [[EldritchLocation Wonderland]]. Eventually, he was cut into pieces by [[FictionalCounterpart Maize Machines]] in order to serves as a power source for their computers, with his head being kept under control under the Statue of Liberty, which is used as a slaughterhouse to feed him. In the season 2 finale, he is responsible for transforming the entire universe into the [[WebVideo/CornerFolklore Cornerworld]] after the [[NiceJobBreakingItHero Airforce One Angel accidentally destroys the Earth in their fight with Freedom]]]].
** Ed Dwight managed to get into NASA and became the first man on the Moon.
** Two odd cases have appeared in the Nixonverse : while the Nixonverse versions of Creator/FrankSinatra and Richard Nixon are the singer and politician we all know, [[spoiler:their Deanverse counterparts are respectively the D-Day Knight and '''God'''.]]
** Unlike his real life counterpart, Elon Musk was able to successfully reach Mars and colonize it as American territory in 2023 during the third season.
** Creator/RodSerling became a high-ranking FBIAgent, tasked by James Dean to track down [[IntrepidReporter Howard Melrose]].
* The ''Literature/NewDealCoalitionRetained'' timeline is based on the [[PointOfDivergence divergence point]] that President Eisenhower's Chief of Staff Sherman Adams dies in a car crash right after his reelection. This affects how his administration is run going forward, which ripples outward and affects the rest of the world, resulting in numerous examples of this trope:
** After Eisenhower, you have Presidents [[spoiler:Richard Nixon in 1960 (R), Nelson Rockefeller in 1963 (R), John F. Kennedy in 1964 (D), George Wallace in 1968 (D), Ronald Reagan in 1976 (R), Donald Rumsfeld in 1984 (R), Lee Iacocca in 1992 (D), ''Ted Bundy'' in 1996 (R), and James Meredith in 2001 (R)]].
** Charlton Heston becomes a Congressman.
** Ted Bundy becomes a County Prosecutor in Washington after [[FramingTheGuiltyParty framing another killer for his crimes]]. Later, he manages to be elected Governor [[spoiler: and, as noted above, eventually President]]. Also, he marries Creator/JenniferAniston.
** UsefulNotes/JimJones becomes Mayor of San Francisco. Later, he serves as Chairman of the Progressive National Committee, and then Governor of California.
** UsefulNotes/CharlesManson [[spoiler:attempts to assassinate Martin Luther King Jr]].
** Barack Obama Sr. becomes President of Kenya. He later gains custody of his son after his mother and stepfather die in a car crash; Barack Jr. goes on to serve as personal aide to his father's ally Idi Amin and eventually succeeding his father as President.
** Prince Charles marries Julie Nixon instead of Diana Spencer [[spoiler:and becomes King of Britain in the '70s]].
** Creator/JaneFonda is tried and executed for treason after she travels to North Vietnam and speaks in their favor, condemning the American war effort.
** [[UsefulNotes/RobertFKennedy Bobby Kennedy]] becomes a Supreme Court Justice.
** Creator/LeslieNielsen becomes Prime Minister of Canada.
** John Glenn becomes Governor of Ohio.
** Antonin Scalia becomes Governor of Texas, and later a Senator.
** Unlike reality, Robert Bork's nomination for the Supreme Court is confirmed, and he ends up as Chief Justice.
** UsefulNotes/HenryKissinger becomes Director of the CIA.
** UsefulNotes/DickCheney serves as Secretary of State until a near-fatal heart attack causes him to resign. He is then replaced by John Danforth.
** Instead of UsefulNotes/BillClinton, UsefulNotes/{{Hillary Rodham|Clinton}} marries John Heinz, who in turn becomes Governor of Pennsylvania. Clinton, meanwhile, marries Maria Shriver and eventually becomes the US's ambassador to the UN.
** Mitch [=McConnell=] acts as President Rumsfeld's Chief of Staff.
** Colin Powell is appointed commander of NATO forces in Europe.
** Enrico Berlinguer's disagreement with hardline Stalinist thought leads to him splitting from the Italian Communists and forming a more center-left workers' party, which partakes in an anti-Communist coalition. In this capacity, he serves as Minister of Justice, and later Prime Minister.
** Gerhard Frey moves away from Neo-Nazi thought to more mainstream right-wing politics, and ultimately becomes Chancellor of Germany, a position from where he engineers the restoration of the Kaiser as a constitutional monarch. Georg Friedrich is chosen to be the first to hold this title.
** As a child, Narendra Modi's family flee India as refugees after a war with Pakistan, and end up in the US. He still goes into politics, though, and ends up as a Representative from Texas.
** [[Creator/YukioMishima Mishima Yukio]], while embracing nationalism as in OTL, never attempts the infamous failed coup but instead starts a populist political movement and successfully becomes the Japanese Prime Minister.
** Steve Bannon serves as a merchantman commander during WorldWarIII.
** John Hinckley composes the Academy Award-winning score for the movie about Bannon's exploits in the Atlantic during the war.
** Colin Mitchell becomes Prime Minister of Britain. And when he's killed during the Second Blitz, Winston Churchill the Younger is elected to replace him.
** UsefulNotes/SlobodanMilosevic serves as a Warsaw Pact military commander during WWIII.
** Lech Wałęsa's political policies lead to him being exiled from Poland by the communists after the hardliners retake command. He's then smuggled back into the country during the chaos of WWIII and forms a [[LaResistance secret rebel army]] which eventually rises up to help liberate the country.
** Vladimir Zhirinovsky serves as Governor of the Irkutsk Oblast during WWIII [[spoiler: and ends up seceding from the Soviet Union when it becomes clear they're losing]].
** Creator/AleksandrSolzhenitsyn gets into Soviet politics during its reformation phase [[spoiler: and eventually stages a coup at the end of WWIII, dissolving the Soviet Union and becoming President of the Free Russian Republic]].
** Gennady Yanayev denounces the insane hardliners running the Soviet Union during WWIII and establishes a breakaway state in the Urals [[spoiler: which becomes the last Soviet remnant after the USSR is dissolved]].
** UsefulNotes/DonaldTrump serves as President [[spoiler: Bundy]]'s Secretary of the Treasury, while UsefulNotes/MittRomney is his Secretary of State.
** UsefulNotes/VladimirPutin still becomes President of a post-Soviet Russia, but stricter term limits than OTL mean that he's only in office for six years. Afterwards, he becomes Russia's ambassador to the UN, quickly being elected Secretary-General.
** Pablo Escobar abandons the drug trade during WWIII (correctly foreseeing that the government will crack down on the cartels as part of the homefront), enlists in the military, and becomes a war hero. He goes into politics post-war but is driven from the country before he can successfully get elected President.
** UsefulNotes/BernieSanders becomes Mayor of New York.
** Elon Musk becomes a guerrilla resistance leader in Entebbe Pact-occupied parts of South Africa during the Great Southern War.
** UsefulNotes/SteveJobs goes into the field of privatizing space flight instead of personal computers.
** Creator/AndyGriffith becomes a senator.
** [[UsefulNotes/CollegiateAmericanFootball Howard Schnellenberger]] and Paul Ilyinsky both serve as Governor of Florida.
** Creator/TomClancy becomes a senator.
** Ruth Bader Ginsberg becomes a senator instead of a Supreme Court justice.
** Creator/MariskaHargitay goes into politics after ''Series/LawAndOrder'' wraps up, and succeeds Sanders as Mayor of NYC.
* ''Literature/MaleRising'' has created a ''slew'' of these. To name a few:
** Creator/JulesVerne became the Prime Minister of France, twice.
** Creator/LeoTolstoy becomes the leader of Russia after the [[spoiler:First Russian Revolution]].
** UsefulNotes/HarrietTubman becomes a member of Congress for South Carolina [[spoiler:and later, even governor]].
** Confederate General James Longstreet went to the Ottoman Empire after the UsefulNotes/AmericanCivilWar, [[spoiler:converts to Islam, and later helps with the Underground Railroad]].
** Meanwhile, UsefulNotes/TheodoreRoosevelt becomes a socialite instead of a President. [[spoiler:Also, [[CampGay he's]] [[ManlyGay gay]].]]
* In ''Literature/TheRuinsOfAnAmericanPartySystem'', the {{Trope Namer|s}} is inspired as a young man to become an FBI special agent. And his storyline is [[EnsembleDarkHorse one of the most popular]] in the timeline.
* ''Literature/AMorePersonalUnion'' has [[UsefulNotes/SirFrancisDrake Francis Drake]] as a colonist captain turned vengeance-crazed pirate, and Creator/WilliamShakespeare as a mercenary captain [[spoiler:and really a woman]].
* ''Literature/KentuckyFriedPolitics'' contains a lot of examples of this trope:
** The Colonel becoming Governor of Kentucky and later President!?
** UsefulNotes/LyndonJohnson is elected early, defeating Nixon in 1960. His successor is the Colonel.
** UsefulNotes/JohnFKennedy is the Secretary of State for the Johnson administration and launches an unsuccessful campaign for the Presidency in 1968.
** Similar to Kennedy above, UsefulNotes/JimmyCarter becomes a Secretary of State for UsefulNotes/WalterMondale.
** Ray Kroc deciding to enter politics as well.
** Lee Harvey Oswald is remembered as the man who killed UsefulNotes/CheGuevara during the Cuban War. His actions become the subject of a best-seller titled Call Me By My Real Name: Confessions of a Fallen Hero.
** Music/JohnLennon going from Beatle to Liverpool MP, then Labor Party leader, and finally Prime Minister of the UK.
** Creator/BobRoss going from soldier to famous artist, to governor of Alaska, then head of the EPA, and then Paul Wellstone's Vice-President.
** Ditto for Lee Iacocca, Creator/HarryShearer, Creator/KelseyGrammer, and even [[VigilanteMan Bernie Goetz]].
** Creator/KevinSpacey becomes an electrician due to his family never moving to the West Coast and his father's death in 1965 from falling a row of stairs during a blackout.
** UsefulNotes/JohnMcCain becomes an Admiral instead of going to politics, and while recovering on Hawaii meets and marries Ann Dunham, becoming UsefulNotes/BarackObama's stepfather. Barack "Rocky" [=McCain=] thus grows up a MilitaryBrat, becomes Chief of Staff to Vice-President James Meredith, and in 2008, is a Republican state senator in Montana.
** UsefulNotes/DonaldTrump and UsefulNotes/GeorgeWBush are retired baseball players, and they even get into a brawl on the field at one point. Trump decides never to pursue a political career after the assassination of Iacocca, and instead decides to go into independent moviemaking with Creator/TommyWiseau.
*** In addition, Trump's line of ex-wives include UsefulNotes/SarahPalin and a member of the British royal family.
** Rudy Giuliani doesn't become mayor of New York. He instead becomes husband to the NY mayor: Mary-Anne Trump.
** UsefulNotes/BernieSanders is the CEO of the progressive-leaning Tumbleweed Magazine.
** Vladimir Putin, after being crippled by friendly fire from a fellow KGB officer during a riot, turns on the Russian government and becomes an outspoken community organizer, who is frequently interviewed by international news.
** Stephen Hillenburg, the creator of ''WesternAnimation/SpongeBobSquarePants'' IOTL, deciding to create a seafood restaurant chain called [=SpongeBob’s=] Undersea Cuisine, which itself gets a tie-in animated series co-produced with Creator/KlaskyCsupo, called ''The [=SpongeBob=] Zone'', running from 1997-2001.
** Timothy [=McVeigh=] is a computer programmer and left-wing activist responsible for launching Operation Lockjaw against the United States government. He also works for Commodore International and Microsoft.
** UsefulNotes/AlGore becomes a famous documentary film director, looking at important topics like climate change.
** UsefulNotes/BillClinton becomes the Governor of Alaska from 1978 to 1986 and pursued an unsuccessful run for the presidential nomination for the Democratic Party. He later moved to California for a career as a lawyer and attempted to run for Congress in 2010 but the sexual pestering scandal puts an end to his political aspirations there.
*** By the way, the person who beats him in the primary of his 2010 Congress run and goes on to become a House Representative? Monica Lewinsky.
** UsefulNotes/JoeBiden is elected to the Senate in 1984 after serving as Delaware's Governor from 1977 to 1985. Ever since his decades-long political career had ended in the Red Wave of 1996, Biden became a member of the liberal lobby group Centrist Circle and the Amtrak Board of Directors as well as serving as a part-time lecturer at the University of Delaware.
** After his MLB career had ended, Roberto Clemente serves as a Goodwill Ambassador under the Mondale administration as well as the chairman of the Council on Physical Fitness and Sports. Later, Clemente would become the first Black Hispanic Governor of Puerto Rico.
** Geert Wilders moved to the United States and becomes a political strategist for the Republican Party after failing to become a prominent actor in Hollywood.
** Estus Pirkle entered into politics first by becoming Governor of Mississippi and later running an unsuccessful presidential campaign in 1992 rather than remain an obscure preacher whose teachings would serve as the inspiration for the 1971 film ''Film/IfFootmenTireYouWhatWillHorsesDo''.
** Herman Cain becomes the first black CEO of the National Restaurant Association but also becomes a chief executive for Burger Chef and KFC in addition to being elected to office as a GOP Senator from Georgia.
** Creator/JamesRolfe is a prominent critic on [=OurVids=] who is the creator of "Paper-To-Screen Adaptations", a webseries that analyzes good and bad adaptations of popular media. He was also a writer that worked on the animated series ''The Defenders of Dynatron City'' and later became an actor as well as working with Paramount to develop a "movie about video games movies" with Crispin Glover.
** Creator/DougWalker (WebVideo/TheNostalgiaCritic in OTL) becomes an actor turned scriptwriter much like Rolfe.
** UsefulNotes/DickCheney served as Governor of New Mexico.
** Creator/NewtGingrich was the Communications Director for the Denton Administration from 1981 to 1985.
** Larry Sanders becomes interim Prime Minister in 2015.
** Cory Booker becomes a professional dietician.
** [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Nikolayev_(politician) Vladimir Nikolayev]] serves as President of Russia in TheNewTens.
** Instead of becoming the Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski instead becomes the pseudo-leader of an online anarchist/primitivist cult known as the Forest Fellowship. [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Rudolph Eric Rudolph]] is a member of this group and gets arrested in 2014 for bombing a tech business.
** Jeff Bezos becomes Director of NASA.
** Justin Trudeau goes into acting instead of politics, though he does do some political activism.
** Both Creator/RodgerBumpass and Creator/BillFagerbakke pursue different careers with the former becoming a film actor and director while the latter became a renowned linebacker for the Houston Oilers and the Minnesota Vikings (though he does still become an actor). Likewise, Creator/TomKenny is also a film actor, as is Creator/MaddieBlaustein.
** [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Cox Matthew Cox]] becomes a hugely successful gunrunner under the alias "Tommy Gun Thompson", who after his arrest becomes famous for a tell-all autobiography that eventually gets a movie deal.
** UsefulNotes/AndrewYang becomes Mayor of Columbus, Ohio.
* ''Literature/TwilightoftheRedTsar'':
** Bill Clinton, Hu Jintao, and Barack Obama are historians and political writers.
** Andrei Sakharov becomes an important member of the Council of National Salvation.
** Creator/AleksandrSolzhenitsyn still writes about his life as a Gulag prisoner. He also becomes an influential figure in the CNS during the Civil War and the main editor of the Solzhenitsyn Report which consists of documents revealing the darkest secrets of the Soviet government.
** Vladimir Zhirinovsky, known by his Jewish surname, Eidelstein, becomes a far-right politician in Israel.
* ''Literature/TheFireNeverDies'':
** Leon Trotsky (known ITTL by his birth name of Leon Bronstein) moves to the United States and joins the IWW, becoming the leader of the New York Committee of Public Safety and eventually [[spoiler:a general in the American Red Army]].
** Creator/TomClancy, Condoleeza Rice, Creator/AaronSorkin, and [[Creator/GamesWorkshop Matt Ward]] are the authors of some of the in-universe historical texts.
** UsefulNotes/HueyLong is arrested at the start of the Second American Revolution in 1917 as a suspected socialist sympathizer (on account of him being [[TruthInTelevision an attorney who specializes in worker's compensation cases]]). He and his fellow detainees are soon broken out of jail and join a Red partisan group.
** Many notable labor activists, such as Bill "Big Bill" Haywood, Vincent St. John, and William Trautmann, successfully run for political office. Others (also including Haywood) become military commanders in the Second American Revolution.
** Creator/NewtGingrich never goes into politics and is instead a highly successful author of AlternateHistory.
* ''WebOriginal/RedAlert3Paradox'':
** Most of the individuals who would have become President of the United States in real life have instead fallen in line with the Confederate Revolutionaries. Nixon himself is not only a Confederate officer, but also ''was'' a car salesman. UsefulNotes/JohnFKennedy not only survived [[WhoShotJFK his assassination]] (a plot by the Cult of the Black Hand which got foiled by their nemeses, the Order of the Talon), but went on to become head of the Confederate Navy after his presidency ended. On top of all that, UsefulNotes/JosephMcCarthy is revealed to have become President for the [[FictionalPoliticalParty Federalist Party]], the party from which Howard T. Ackerman is part of, and is the one responsible for the [[WeaponizedLandmark weaponized Mount Rushmore]] seen in the Allied campaign.
** UsefulNotes/NikitaKhrushchev is a lowly grain farmer who complains about how Trofim Lysenko's influence over Soviet agriculture has ruined his livelihood. Similarly, UsefulNotes/MikhailGorbachev was instead a Soviet Conscript who got unceremoniously killed in action.
** The Confederate Deck of 52, an in-universe lore article about the Confederates' most wanted targets, includes several historical figures in different positions than what they ended up doing in real life. For example, Usefulnotes/LyndonJohnson is Secretary of American and Pacific Civil Affairs, while UsefulNotes/MartinLutherKingJr is in charge of the Allied Poverty Reduction Programme. In addition, rather than becoming President like in ''[[VideoGame/CommandAndConquerRedAlert2 Red Alert 2]]'', Michael Dugan is instead a senator of Illinois. In contrast, General Benjamin Carville has thrown in his lot with the Confederates.
** UsefulNotes/BenitoMussolini failed in his invasion of Ethiopia, leading to his execution by partisans occurring in 1938.
** Creator/TheWaltDisneyCompany is ironically a subsidiary of the [[MegaCorp Mediterranean Syndicate]], which stems from the Syndicate orchestrating the assassination of Charles Mintz (the man responsible for Walt losing the rights to WesternAnimation/OswaldTheLuckyRabbit), which in turn not only allowed Walt to keep Oswald but drew him and his company into the Syndicate.
** Wernher von Braun became the wartime superhero Captain Rocket, the inspiration for the modern Allied Rocketeer Corps. He is also responsible for killing Boris, the Soviet commando from ''[[VideoGame/CommandAndConquerRedAlert2 Red Alert 2]]''.
** Due to AdaptationExpansion regarding how Cherdenko made himself Premier of the Soviet Union in the alternate timeline he created, it is revealed he orchestrated the deaths of most of the Soviet characters from ''[[VideoGame/CommandAndConquerRedAlert2 Red Alert 2]]'' such as Alexander Romanov, Vladimir, Bronislav, and even Yuri himself (with Cherdenko ensuring the last one became a complete UnPerson). Only Zofia was spared, and even then Cherdenko had her [[ReassignedToAntarctica assigned to a post in the middle of Kazakhstan]].
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Western Animation]]
* ''WesternAnimation/TheNewScoobyDooMovies'' often did this, for example portraying Creator/DonKnotts as a [[Series/TheAndyGriffithShow policeman]] and Creator/DickVanDyke as a carnie.
* Most episodes of ''WesternAnimation/TimeSquad'' had a variation of this trope, as the show's premise was that the timeline "decays" and the characters need to convince historical figures to get back to their actual roles in history. Music/LudwigVanBeethoven was a professional wrestler, Creator/LeonardoDaVinci was a beatnik, and one episode even featured UsefulNotes/AlbertEinstein as a used car salesman.
* Done in ''WesternAnimation/BuzzLightyearOfStarCommand'' in an alternate universe, in which Buzz is a supervillain and Zurg is a fry cook at a diner.
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'': In the special episode Bender's Big Score, Bender is reprogrammed by scammers into a time-travelling assassin to kill Fry. Bender constantly screws up and accidentally sets fire to a batch of votes from Al Gore, causing him to descend into CassandraTruth [[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything about a robot destroying his votes and loses all his credibility as a politician]]. Later in the timeline we see him as a taxi driver. Without him to continue advocating environmentalism, $100 is only enough to buy ''one gallon of gas''.
* ''WesternAnimation/WhatIf2021'': In the episode "[[Recap/WhatIfS1E2WhatIfTChallaBecameAStarLord What If... T'Challa Became a Star-Lord?]]", because T'Challa was taken into space instead of Peter Quill, Drax lives happily as a bartender[[note]]because the Kree invasion of his homeworld was thwarted and his family is still alive[[/note]] and Peter works at a Dairy Queen [[note]]though the last scene of the episode has him meeting his father, Ego[[/note]].
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