->''Year 33 -- The Malkavians claim that their greatest practical joke happen during this year, when they perform a bit of [[{{Jesus}} graverobbing in Jerusalem]].''
-->-- ''[[WorldOfDarkness Vampire: The Masquerade]]'' timeline

Happens when a show references a historical event, and provides additional information about the event, relating it to the show. This either changes the meaning of the event, or shows what really caused it, as opposed to what everyone thinks really happened.

[[DonaldPBellisario Don Bellisario]], the producer/creator of ''QuantumLeap'', called these "kisses with history".

Given the [[DidNotDoTheResearch painstaking lack of research]] that most writers perform before writing, it should come as no surprise that many {{Historical In Joke}}s are [[AnachronismStew painfully inaccurate anachronisms.]]

Naturally will involve a HistoricalDomainCharacter or two.

Compare ItWillNeverCatchOn. A character who does a lot of these becomes TheGump. If the protagonists blunder into a famous event instead of interfering deliberately, this can also be evidence that InThePastEveryoneWillBeFamous. Naturally, this is a form of InJoke.

Subtropes include:
* RoswellThatEndsWell
* TheTunguskaEvent
* BeethovenWasAnAlienSpy
* ETGaveUsWiFi
* PhlebotinumKilledTheDinosaurs

----
[[foldercontrol]]

!!Examples

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]
* In the ''InuYasha'' movie, we find out that the storm that thwarted the 1281 Mongol invasion of Japan was caused by a battle between InuYasha's father and a Chinese demon lord.
* In ''RurouniKenshin'', the murder of Japanese minister of the interior Okubo Toshimichi in 1878 is {{retcon}}ned to have been executed by fictional character Seta Sojiro, rather than a group of sympathizers of Takamori Saigo. They just show up and take credit for it.
* All of ''LeChevalierDEon'' is an elaborately staged HistoricalInJoke told in the context of an 18th Century spy adventure. It covers the rise of Catherine the Great and Robespierre, among others....
* In an episode of ''StrikeWitches'' (which is set in an alternate 1944 in which aliens invaded and conquered most of continental Europe in 1939), Minna comments how if the aliens hadn't invaded, their superiors (Europe's political and military leaders) would likely be [[WorldWarTwo fighting among themselves]].
* An [[http://www.onemanga.com/Zettai_Karen_Children/119/01/ omake]] in ''ZettaiKarenChildren'' reveals that it was BABEL's {{Tsundere}} director who proposed a day where "girls give presents".
* In ''HigurashiNoNakuKoroNi'', the original visual novel version has soldiers from Hinamizawa being responsible for the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marco_Polo_Bridge_Incident Marco Polo Bridge Incident]]. [[spoiler:It was the first outbreak of the HatePlague Hinamizawa Syndrome]].
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Comics]]
* Done a lot in the French comic ''{{Asterix}}''. To name just a few examples:
** In ''Asterix Meets Cleopatra'', Obelix is revealed to be responsible for the Sphinx's missing nose.
** In ''Asterix in Britain'', Asterix introduces tea to the British and Obelix suggests introducing rugby to the folks back in Gaul (professional rugby is quite popular in several European countries, including both France and Great Britain).
** In ''Asterix in Spain'', when Asterix and Obelix ask if Unhygienix the fishmonger will rent his fishing boat to them, he mentions in passing that he'll take his payment in menhirs (stone monoliths), as he's looking to develop some land he owns in Britain (which a footnote explains is on Salisbury Plain, i.e. the location of Stonehenge). The original French version of this same book used Carnac instead of Stonehenge, a French town in the southern coast of Brittany, home to another big megalithic site.
*** Later in the book, Asterix accidentally invents bullfighting when he gets captured by the Romans and, instead of being thrown to the lions, is forced to fight a wild aurochs (a sort of now-extinct bull). Which might not sound very terrible, unless you know aurochs were twice the size of modern bovines. Kind of like having to fight a tank made of meat.
* {{Don Rosa}}'s ''TheLifeAndTimesOfScroogeMcDuck'' features quite a few historical in-jokes. Apparently, during his rise to fame and fortune, Scrooge has met such personalities as Wyatt Earp, Theodore Roosevelt, and P.T. Barnum. (And, as Rosa explains in the collected edition, all of the scenarios are somewhat plausible, as the people in question were, more or less, where Rosa has them. He [[ShownTheirWork prides himself on his research.]])
* ''TheSandman'' has several, though "jokes" may not be the correct description. For a prominent example, Shakespeare's talent comes as a results of a proto-DealWithTheDevil with Morpheus (he gets his talent, but Morpheus essentially becomes his patron in return).
** There's also a very meta-example. Wesley Dodds (the original Sandman in comics) was inspired by Morpheus through his dreams.
* ''{{Hellblazer}}'' does this with John Constantine's ancestors, usually Johanna Constantine. One ancestor disrupted the dream that became "Kublai Khan" because [[OurAngelsAreDifferent Angels]] are describing how awesome [[FluffyCloudHeaven Heaven]] is, which isn't kosher.
* ''{{Watchmen}}'' involves the introduction of masked avengers into a "normal" earth, and quite a lot of these result -- amongst them, JFK's assassination is heavily implied (and downright stated in the movie) to be performed by The Comedian.
** More obscurely, the movie also shows Neil Armstrong saying, [[http://www.snopes.com/quotes/mrgorsky.asp "Good luck, Mr. Gorsky!"]].
* This trope is also featured in the ''{{Predator}}'' comics, after it was already implied in the movies that these [[SufficientlyAdvancedAlien Sufficiently Advanced Aliens]] had been visiting Earth for a veeeery long time.
** In ''Predator: Concrete Jungle'', Major Phillips (the one that sent Dutch's team to the jungle in the first movie) claims the Predators exterminated the dinosaurs and [[AncientAstronauts gave birth to Ancient religions]]. Both claims were ignored in later comics and even denied by some fans till they were (partially) confirmed in the ''{{Alien vs Predator}}'' movies.
** In ''Predator: The Bloody Sands of Time'', the main character discovers that Predators were responsible for the fall of Fort Douamont to the Germans in February 1916, thus triggering the Battle of Verdun as the French attempted to recover the position.
* ''LeagueOfExtraordinaryGentlemen'' has quite a few of these, although most connect events in several other works of fiction -- several of those are analogues for real-world events, like WW2 and Jack the Ripper murders. One of the funniest examples might be Orlando having posed for Leonardo DaVinci -- while [[GenderBender changing hir sex]].
* ''{{Transformers}}: Hearts of Steel'' has Tobias Muldoon, a young engineer, demonstrate his new invention, a 'sub-marine', to an audience that includes JulesVerne. In-story, this happens a couple of years before Verne wrote ''20,000 Leagues Under The Sea''.
* ''TheUltimates'' had a whole storyline about a race of aliens called the Chitauri who, as Nick Fury revealed, were the real Nazis trying to take over the world to subvert the people of Earth to their will if not for the actions of CaptainAmerica. They end up coming back to try again in the present day by infiltrating SHIELD, led by the very same Herr Kleiser who tormented the Allies in the past, which eventually leads to the resurrected Cap yelling the now famous ([[YourMileageMayVary or]] [[{{Narm}} infamous]]) quote, [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome "Surrender?! You think this "A" on my head stands for FRANCE?"]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Films]]
* ''BackToTheFuture'' and ''Back to the Future III'' show the "real" origin of rock-and-roll music, skateboarding and Frisbee discs.
** To be fair, the pie tin from the Frisbee Pie Company ''was'' the origin of the Frisbee... just ya know, on the other end of the country.
* ''Dick'' explains the identity of the mysterious "Deep Throat" (the movie was made years before it was revealed in RealLife to be someone else), and the 18-minute gap in RichardNixon's private tapes.
* ''TheGodfather Part III'' {{RetCon}}s the death of Pope John Paul I and the murder of the Vatican's chief banker into part of a Mafia vs. Vatican conspiracy. Assuming they ''weren't'' in the first place.
* Recurring joke in ''ForrestGump'' (as Forrest inadvertently invents jogging and the smiley face, teaches Elvis to dance, etc.).
** This is even more rampant in the novel, which includes Forrest playing fetch with those nice police doggies playing with Mr. King and his sign-carrying friends.
* ''MenInBlack'' had aliens blasting the ozone layer hole over the arctic. The well-propagated vicious rumors that fluorocarbons dissolve the ozone layer are just PlausibleDeniability.
** Agent K explained early in the first movie that the 1977 New York Blackout was a practical joke by a group of aliens using a ball with extreme (to say the least) bouncing capabilities.
** MIB also shows that many of the famous celebrities and historical figures are/were aliens. Late in the movie, Agent K outright states that Elvis Presley's mysterious death was really him just returning to his own world. There's also a screen showing numerous celebrities that are really aliens, like Sylvester Stallone and Danny Devito.
* ''ShakespeareInLove'' is another movie that lives and breathes this trope.
* ''ShanghaiNoon'' and ''Shanghai Knights'' both had this. The end of the first movie revealed that Roy O'Bannon's real name was Wyatt Earp (a famous [[TheWildWest Western]] lawman from the 19th century). The second film was loaded with the things, from Roy's defense of losing Chon's money investing in dead-end airship research ("Chon, you're lucky I didn't invest in that ridiculous 'auto-mobile' idea.") to the appearance of a (very) young CharlieChaplin. Not to mention explaining why Jack the Ripper stopped.
* In ''StarTrekFirstContact'' we learn that Riker and La Forge helped Zefram Cochrane pilot the famous ''Phoenix'' spacecraft, about two hundred and fifty years before they were born.
* From ''WalkTheLine'': When Johnny Cash wakes up on the tour bus, he walks past a passed out Luther Perkins (his guitarist) with a lit cigarette in his mouth and he casually put it out. Luther Perkins died months after the "At Folsom Prison" recording/performance when he fell asleep in his Tennessee home with a lit cigarette in his mouth, and died from injuries sustained in the resulting fire.
* ''Young Einstein'' starring Yahoo Serious is basically a 91-minute long collection of historical in-jokes, although the end result is not quite an elaborated version of history as we know it. Einstein is from Tasmania, invents foamy beer by splitting the beer atom and ends up romantically with Marie Curie... oh, and he also comes up with Rock & Roll.
* In {{Oscar}}, mob boss Angelo Provolone asks his accountant Little Anthony why he doesn't remember something, to which Anthony replies, "You were in Chicago. It was St. Valentines Day?"
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Literature]]
* ''DirkGently's Holistic Detective Agency'' by DouglasAdams ties together the origins of life on earth, Coleridge's epic poem ''Kublai Khan'', the extinction of the dodo and dozens of other epochal or trivial events into an excellent approximation of a coherent plot.
* In IsaacAsimov's short story "The Message" (1955), a {{time travel}}er goes back to observe the SecondWorldWar, ancient history to him. Desperate to leave some kind of mark that signified his presence and yet wouldn't change the outcome of any major events, he carves a message on a wooden fence somewhere on a North African beach. [[spoiler: The traveler is named Dr. George Kilroy, and the message he leaves is the first-ever KILROY WAS HERE graffito.]]
* ''{{Dave Barry}} Slept Here'' makes excellent use of this.
* In Avram Davidson's ''Full Chicken Richness'', a {{time travel}}ling cook kills off the dodo to use in his soup. (In RealLife, according to the sailors who discovered them, dodos tasted terrible.)
* [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] in ''TheThreeMusketeers''. John Felton is so seduced by a captive Milady De Winter that not only does he set her free but also goes as far as assassinate her captor, George Villiers, the First Duke of Buckingham. AlexandreDumas's work was written in 1844, making this OlderThanRadio. Felton did, indeed, assassinate the Duke, but more likely for political reasons, probably due to discontent regarding the state of the English navy. Rash behavior due to a romantic crush would have been uncharacteristic of the fellow.
* Umberto Eco's ''{{Baudolino}}'', being a historical novel about an influential liar, is full of these. Among other things, it gives an alternate explanation for the death of Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, and reveals the "true" origin of the works of the Archpoet and the letter of Prester John.
* This the entire premise of JasperFforde's ''ThursdayNext'' series, extended to all fictional events from written literature as well.
** In ''The Eyre Affair'', for example, it is established early on that Nextiverse!''Jane Eyre'' ends differently from how it does in real life. Toward the end of the book, however, [[spoiler: Thursday goes into the novel]] in order to put things back to normal... but[[spoiler:, in her effort to catch Jane Eyre's attention without becoming mentioned in the first-person narrative, she ends up becoming the mysterious disembodied voice that is an integral part of real world!''Jane Eyre'']].
* In NeilGaiman's ''{{Neverwhere}}'', [[ThoseTwoBadGuys Croup and Vandemar]] were responsible for burning Troy and spreading [[ThePlague the Black Death]]. It is also hinted that they were the men who crucified {{Jesus}}.
** "It had been a very long time since they had crucified anybody."
* Erek in ''{{Animorphs}}'' is more than five thousand years old, was FranklinRoosevelt's butler, and apparently coined the phrase "New Deal" during a card game. His race of androids in general is also responsible for the creation of the domestic dog, who fused the DNA of their fun-loving canine/humanoid creators with wolves, in order to preserve their essence in some way.
** Another Animorphs explains that broccoli tastes bad to humans because it was brought to Earth by alien colonizers during the time of the dinosaurs. These aliens were also ground zero for the impact that killed off the dinosaurs which was brought down by refugees of another race that had lost a war to the first mentioned race. A handful of survivors from one of those alien races apparently evolved into ants.
** Yet another mentions that Elfangor was once friends with two guys named Bill and Steve, whom he helped explain computers to. He had to explain it to Bill with the term "Windows."
* In ''Behold the Man'' by Michael Moorcock, a man goes back in time in an attempt to meet {{Jesus}}. However, he finds that [[spoiler: Jesus' life is a total myth. He then takes it upon himself to become Jesus, preaching the teachings he learned in the future, until he is finally crucified by the Romans.]]
* ''Grim Tuesday'', the second book of GarthNix's ''KeysToTheKingdom'' series, reveals that TheGreatDepression was caused by Grim Tuesday's greedy meddling. This also counts as ParentalBonus as it's not outright stated and most of the 9-12 year old kids that the books are marketed towards probably wouldn't know enough to make the connection.
* ''{{The Areas of My Expertise}}'', by John Hodgman, is filled to the brim with them. Its sequel, ''MoreInformationThanYouRequire'', has one on ''every page''.
* The novel series about ''ErastFandorin'' ''revels'' in {{Historical In Joke}}s. [[AncientConspiracy What caused the rapid scientific advancement of late 19th century?]] [[SpyDrama Why did the Siege of Pleven take place?]] [[CareerKillers Who murdered General Skobelev?]] Who was JackTheRipper ''really''? [[DiabolicalMastermind Who was behind the Khodynka Tragedy?..]]
* The two-part ''StarTrek'' novel ''The Eugenics Wars: The Rise and Fall of Khan Noonien Singh'' is an attempt to reconcile real world history with the fact that, in the ''StarTrek'' timeline, the Eugenics Wars occurred in the 1990s.
*All of Animal Farm. Seriously, the whole thing is an analogue to the 1917 Revolution in Russia, the civil war the followed, and World War II.
*Jonathan Stroud's TheBartimaeusTrilogy is filled with this, mostly in footnotes, where the titular demon often refers to his previous masters, most of them being real famous (along with a few more obscure) historical figures.
* In the sixth book of {{The Dark Tower}}, the protagonists are trying to get rid of Black Thirteen, a cosmic artifact that continually brings bad luck and catastrophe to whomever holds it. As part of a plot necessity, they travel to New York City in 1999, and get a brilliant idea to stash the troublemaking object in a storage locker under the World Trade Center towers. As they leave the scene, Jake looks up at the towers, and wonders idly whether the object might be destroyed if say, the towers just ''happened'' to crumble on top of it somehow. It's further intimated that due to its evil nature, the presence of Black Thirteen may have ''caused'' the WTC attacks.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Live Action TV]]
* ''QuantumLeap'' had at least one every episode, including (among other things) Sam teaching a five-year-old Michael Jackson to moonwalk.
** Other notable figures Sam meets (or Leaps into!) include: Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly, Stephen King, and Lee Harvey Oswald.
* In the episode "Trials and Tribble-ations", ''StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' actually did this to a bit of ''Star Trek'''s own history -- in something much more than a simple ContinuityNod, the episode revealed that there was much more going on in the background of the [[StarTrekTheOriginalSeries original series]] episode "The Trouble with Tribbles" than was initially seen by viewers in the 1960s.
** Also, the scene of Tribbles continuing to fall down on Kirk's head, one every ten seconds or so, long after the storage compartment had been opened and most of the tribbles had fallen out proves to be the [=DS9=] team's tossing Tribbles aside once scanned.
* Same with the ''StarTrekVoyager'' episode "Flashback", where Tuvok [[FlashBack flashes back]] to his service aboard the ''Excelsior''... during the time of ''StarTrek VI''. He's even the one who gave Sulu the tea that we see knocked over at the beginning of the movie. Interestingly, since the original Trek actors had aged a good bit, many scenes that happened exactly as seen in ''Star Trek VI'' had to be redone (or else, Sulu ages ten years once original footage kicks in.) Watch 'em back to back and you'll notice the tiniest differences, like the way Valtane's hand moves when he puts it on the railing, or Sulu saying "Shields! Shields!" a bit more loudly, or a few camera angles being different. Also, the ''Excelsior'''s warp engines only glow in original (i.e., "shot for the show") footage, as a new model's being used -- although the nacelles of the movie model were wired to glow, they didn't.
** An incident occurred during the filming of this episode that is either the greatest HistoricalInJoke, or the luckiest accident, of Star Trek history. During the flashback sequences, we see Dimitri Valtane die, despite his chronologically later appearance at the end of Star Trek VI. WordOfGod jokingly suggested he had a twin brother serving on the same ship, but the general fanon response was that he had been succesfully resuscitated off screen. The former is now accepted as correct, however, because in the opening scenes of Star Trek VI, because of a poor editing job, Valtane is seen to be manning two separate consoles on opposite sides of the bridge. Only one of him appears at the end, so the twin theory is actually the best solution.
* ''StarTrekEnterprise'' pulled a cute one in the episode ''Carbon Creek''. ''Star Trek'' canon states that humanity met the Vulcans in the late 21st century after Cochrane's warp flight. Apparently, a little-known fact is that a Vulcan survey ship crashed in Pennsylvania in the '50s. A Vulcan woman raises money for a boy to go to college by introducing the bank owner to a strangely adhesive fabric, better known as Velcro, invented in the real world by "George" de Mestral.
**The name of one of the Vulcans? Mestral.
* ''RedDwarf'' did a double in-joke by having an alternate dimension President Kennedy assassinate himself -- from behind the grassy knoll.
* ''TheXFiles'', "Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man", shows the CSM writing a fictionalized account of a mysterious government operative (himself) assassinating JFK and MLK. However, it is strongly implied that much of the story is made up to make him seem more important.
** He also gives a standing order for the Bills to never win a Super Bowl, which explains a lot.
* Both ''StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' and ''[[BabylonFive Babylon 5]]'' revealed the secret truth behind JackTheRipper.
* Hilda's and Zelda's exploits in ''SabrinaTheTeenageWitch'' are liberally sprinkled with [[HistoricalInJoke historical in-jokes.]] "And that was how Aunt Hilda started something called the American Revolution."
** "Oh, so ''that's'' why [the Parthenon is] in ruins!" "Yes! Luckily, History blamed the Turks."
* ''{{The Adventures of Brisco County Jr}}.'' has historical in-jokes in virtually every episode, as Brisco encounters some gizmo which is sure to be the next "coming thing".
* Naturally, ''DoctorWho'', being a show centered around time travel, had plenty of these. The Doctor himself, for instance, wrote ''Hamlet'' down for {{Shakespeare}} after the latter had sprained his wrist writing sonnets, and the Great Fire of London was started by a dying alien.
** In the new series episode "The Shakespeare Code", the Tenth Doctor accidentally suggested a good many of his most famous lines to The Bard, including "to be or not to be". The Doctor even gives him Dylan Thomas's "Rage, rage against the dying of the light", but tells Shakespeare that "it's been used." Also, Shakespeare wrote the sonnet beginning with "Shall I compare thee...?" to the Doctor's companion, who also happened to be the Dark Lady mentioned in some of his other poems.
** Although they messed up a bit there, as that sonnet is not believed to be about the Dark Lady.
** In the episode "Father's Day", the whole of [[TemporalParadox time itself begins screwing up due to interference with the death of a person]], causing such stuff as a phone ringing which when picked up treats the listener to "Watson, come here quick, I need you...", [[spoiler: the first words ever spoken through a phone, by Alexander Graham Bell.]]
** Similar to the way the Doctor name drops the famous historical figures he's met, Jack Harkness has a tendency to drop the names of famous historical figures he's ''dated'' in ''{{Torchwood}}''.
** And in the latest series it is also revealed that [[spoiler: the Doctor and his companion were responsible for the eruption of Vesuvius. Earlier in the same episode, we get both a HistoricalInJoke and a ContinuityNod, as the Doctor very quickly tells Donna he "Before you ask, that fire had nothing to do with me. Well, a little bit..." referring to the Great Fire of Rome in AD 63, which in a VERRRRRRRRRY early episode was shown to have been inadvertently inspired by the Doctor holding a magnifying glass too long at a map...]]
*** [[spoiler: It was actually the first doctor hiding his spectacles from Nero that ignited the map, not a magnifying glass.]]
** Not to mention that various alien species were responsible for the creation of the universe (''Terminus''), the Earth (''The Runaway Bride''), the creation of life on Earth (''City of Death''), wiped out the dinosaurs (''Earthshock''), and the directed the development of human sentience (''Image of the Fendahl'').
** Donna, being unaware of the exact point of Agatha Christie's career at the point where she meets her, tries to sell the author several of her own ideas, like Miss Marple, or Murder on the Orient Express.
*** Seriously, when you start watching a lot of Doctor Who, this trope starts to look like the summary of the show.
* ''All'' of ''{{Blackadder}}''.
* The single-season SciFi series ''DarkSkies'' centered around this trope, "revealing" that aliens or the GovernmentConspiracy to fight them have been involved in almost every major event over the course of the mid-60s, from the Kennedy assassination on down.
* In the abysmal ''TheLostWorld'' TV series, the protagonists find themselves transported to WWI era Fulham and meet WinstonChurchill himself. During the episode, he responds to the [[YouHaveToBelieveMe outrageous claims]] of the protagonists saying "That's about as likely as I becoming Prime Minister!"
** This may be a double joke with MargaretThatcher, who ''did'' say "No woman in my time will be Prime Minister."
* ''The Young IndianaJones Chronicles'' sees Indy meeting virtually every major historical figure of the early 20th century before his 21st birthday.
* ''IClaudius'' has Nero proclaim, "Such a pretty thing, a fire..." Uh-oh.
* Mr. Jimmy James on ''NewsRadio'' has claimed to be the informant Deep Throat on more than one occasion.
**It's also strongly implied that he is D.B. Cooper (explaining how he came to be rich)
* Vorenus and Pullo from ''{{Rome}}'' have been called the Forrest Gumps of Ancient Rome. During the course of the show they witness, cause or partake in pretty much every single important event during the end of the Roman republic.
**One good example is the second episode, where the attack on Marc Antony by Pompey's men when he's heading for the senate is actually an attack on Pullo by a random thug Pullo gambled and argued with (and killed his friend). This attack on Antony is believed to be Pompeius's thugs trying to prevent Antony from wielding his lawful power of veto, and becoming the key incident that led to Caesar crossing the Rubicon. The episode is even titled "How Titus Pullo Brought Down The Republic".
** Pullo being heavily implied as the real father of Caesarion, the historical son of Caesar and Cleopatra.
*** It's not heavily implied if two characters state it outright, as well as it being the only chronological explanation that makes sense, and the original motive behind the conception of Caesarion.
** Vorenus believing himself responsible for Caesar's death, as he was to accompany Caesar the day of his assassination, but was stopped by a woman who told him that his daughter's child was actually his wife's child by another man, causing him to leave and confront Niobe, while Caesar goes and gets killed on his own.
** Pullo uncovering the stash of gold and silver from the treasury looted by the Optimates, stealing it all for himself before handing it back over to Caesar when he's caught. Historically, it's said that none of Pompey's supporters, nor Pompey himself, managed to empty out the treasury, allowing Caesar to claim it for his war effort, seriously hampering the optimates' finances for the civil war, causing them to heavily tax the provinces of the east, drawing heavy resentment from them.
* {{Mystery Science Theater 3000}} had a story arc where Pearl, Observer, and Bobo travel back to ancient Rome. As they leave for their own time, Bobo steals a wheel of cheese, knocking down a candle in the hay-filled room and starting a fire that can be heard throughout the end credits. It's implied that this is the great fire that burned down the city.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Tabletop Games]]
* The old ''WorldOfDarkness'' had a number of these; the one mentioned at the top of the page relates to the Malkavian clan. If you're wondering, think the Joker as a vampire, and then make them thousands strong (though, as might be imagined, rarely united). Another, borderline example is ''Dark Ages: Werewolf'', which linked the fairy tale of Red Riding Hood to a young werewolf's First Change -- Red ''is'' the werewolf, and in the throes of her First Change, kills her grandmother and is found (and implied to be killed, or at least grievously wounded) by a lumberjack who finds her grieving.
** In fact, in the old ''World of Darkness'', the one thing [[WordOfGod the supernaturals never had an active hand in]] was [[HitlersTimeTravelExemptionAct the Third Reich and the Holocaust]].
*** Wasn't the Holocaust at least indirectly caused by [[CompleteMonster the Nephandi]]?
**** In an early edition, yeah; they undid that, and made it policy not to "explain" Nazism in fantastic terms, because they decided it was irresponsible/in bad taste.
***** And they didn't consider "explaining" Christinaity as bad taste? I mean 33% of the world's population believes in it for pete's sake!
* In one of the {{Sourcebook}}s for ''MageTheAwakening'', it states that the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halifax_explosion Halifax explosion]] was actually caused by a battle between Pentacle mages and ChurchMilitant members of the [[AncientConspiracy Seers of the Throne]]. Mages are said to refer to the explosion as the "Battle of the Maritime".
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Video Games]]
* Many of the major characters that Altair is sent to assassinate in ''AssassinsCreed'' were real historical figures who died during 1193, the year in which the game is set.
* In ''MetalGearSolid 3'', the Cuban missile crisis was actually resolved by handing over a Soviet scientist who'd defected to the West, and the Turkish nukes were outdated and going to be removed anyway.
** Later, Snake makes a joke that the prototypical Russian helicopter which is smaller than the Hip should be called a Hind. His [[BunnyEarsLawyer support team]] agree to use Hind as the code for the kind of helicopter from now on.
*** In fact, [=MGS3=] is ''rife'' with instances of this, including Snake being the first to perform a HALO jump (which ''was'' actually first performed in 1964), as well as Snake finding an XM16E1 and making suggestions for how it would be a better rifle, echoing complaints from soldiers in Vietnam who made the same suggestions that were ultimately incorporated into the rifle's design.
* Bram Stoker's novel ''Dracula'' is canon in ''{{Castlevania}}'' chronology. John Morris and Johnathan Morris, protagonists from ''Bloodlines'' and ''Portrait of Ruin'' respectively, are descendants of Quincey Morris.
*In {{Scribblenauts}} Albert Einstein is afraid of God.
** Ironically, I'm pretty sure Einstein believed in God in some way
*** Spinoza's god, to be exact.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Comics]]
* ''QuestionableContent'' suggests that WorldWarOne was started due to a badly worded sexual innuendo about someone wanting to "invade her Alsace", and things spiralling out of control from there. Whether they were joking or not seems to be unknown.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Original]]
* The Unified Field Crossover History of the Universe (http://crossover.bureau42.com/timeshredder1.html ) is a website pratically dedicated to this trope.
* The SCPFoundation does this rather creepily in this [[http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/to-the-best-of-my-abillity-preserve-protect-and-defend story]]. [[spoiler: The SCP Foundation was responsible for the JFK Assassination. Apparently, he tried to oppose the Foundation.]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Western Animation]]
* ''FamilyGuy'' is fond of this, in flashbacks which sometimes don't even relate to the show in any way. For example, when Peter was arguing that Stewie might be too young for potty-training, a flashback suggested that the Lindbergh baby was accidentally flushed down a toilet. And that Amelia Earhart was done away with for witnessing it.
** John Wilkes Booth killed ''AbrahamLincoln'' for talking on his cellphone.
** Peter killed Nicole & Ronald. OJ was just at the wrong place at the wrong time.
* ''AmericanDad'' had the main character shooting RonaldReagan, because, well: [[spoiler:He originally wanted to kill Jane Fonda because he blamed her for the war on Christmas, then he found out that she was influenced by Donald Sutherland, who was in turn influenced by Martin Scorsese. Stan convinces Scorsese to give up drugs, which in turn causes him to lose his edge. As a result, ''TaxiDriver'' is never made, so there's no star vehicle for Jodie Foster, and no one for John Hinckley to become obsessed with. As a result of ''that'', Reagan is never shot, which means there was no incident to bolster public support; so [[ForWantOfANail Mondale won, and practically "handed over the country to the Commies".]] Thus, Stan Smith shoots Reagan. Also, in the same episode, one of the main characters "invents" the genre of disco. Whew.]]
* ''CloneHigh'' being what it is, it's rife with these. In it, Marie Curie is a giant, misshapen mutant of a girl because of her irradiated DNA. People such as the clones of Ritchie Valens, Buddy Holly, and half of Lynyrd Skynyrd go up in a plane made of junk.
* ''TimeSquad'' did this almost every episode, as the entire premise of the show was that they went back in time to make sure that history happens correctly. The main characters are singlehandedly responsible for such things as The Boston Tea Party, the Battle at the Alamo, and the invention of peanut butter.
** Also, in the episode where the team has to make Betsy Ross design the American flag, one of the colonial hippies blends his own brand of coffee to energize the others. His name as a hippie? Starbuck.
** After a whole episode dealing with putting Abraham Lincoln's presidency back on track, the time travelers return to the future just as Abraham suggests to his wife that he feels like visiting Ford's Theater...
* In ''{{Futurama}}: Bender's Big Score'', the titular robot travels back to the year 2000, where his virus-induced homicidal rampage accidentally destroys a large number of ballots in Florida. This virus was used by a group of greedy, nudist, and narcissitic alien scammers to make Bender to go back in time and steal treasures, and as a result, he is seen with several artifacts that have gone missing, like the Sphinx's nose and the Holy Grail.
** RetCon of some of the earliest episodes, where Al Gore was implied to have become President of the United States.
*** Is that really a retcon? Usually retcon is something that "happened this way all along", while this is a chance, that takes place in the show's history?
** His time-travelling also causes several in-show historical in-jokes as well. For example, one episode revolved around Fry finding his pet dog Seymoure as a fossil in a museum and his attempts to resurrect it. In the movie, while the scammers are forcing Bender to assinate Fry in 2010, the year Seymoure died at a "healthy old age", one of Bender's futuristic weapons misses him and encases the poor dog in stone. [[spoiler:This quickly goes from a joke to a sad moment when one recalls that Fry decided not to bring Seymoure back because he thought he died of old age.]]
* A blink-and-you'll-miss-it reference to an alternate past comes near the end of the ''FairlyOddparents'' special "The Secret Origin of Denzel Crocker". Right after '70s-Jorgen shows up to erase everyone's memories of the fairies being revealed, present-Jorgen shows up to take Timmy back to his own era and says that Timmy is forbidden from returning to March of 1972, but can still travel to any of the other months "so long as you don't interfere with the election of President [=McGovern=]". This implies that either ''TheFairlyOddparents'' takes place in an alternate continuity where [[RichardNixon Nixon]] was never re-elected, or Timmy didn't listen and is somehow responsible for Nixon's re-election.
** There was the one where Timmy released the kids from the Cosmo & Wanda's "Wall of Shame". One of them "took out" Archduke Franz Ferdinand, triggering ''WorldWarOne''.
** In an earlier episode, they inspire a young boy to "Connect all the computers in the world together, and call it the internet," Wanda's response? "That Bill Gates and his CRAZY ideas," Of course, he gets the name wrong...
* In the Disney film ''Hercules'', it's indicated that the reason the ''Venus de Milo'' has no arms is because Hercules accidentally broke them off.
* In ''{{Disney/Aladdin}}'', the crack in the Sphinx's nose happens during the flyby in [[FallingInLoveMontage "A Whole New World"]]. (Nevermind that it was just fine until Turkish troops shot a cannonball at it.)
**[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Sphinx_of_Giza#Missing_nose_and_beard The cannon isn't canon]]
* Whereas ''ThePrinceOfEgypt'' posits that it's Moses' fault, when he crashes his chariot, setting in motion DisasterDominoes.
* A Halloween episode of ''The Simpsons'' had Wiggum's ancestor beratting Orson Welles which ended with the phrase "nose, bud". Welles says [[CitizenKane Nosebud]]...
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