History Main / HistoricalInJoke

* Mr. Jimmy James on ''Series/NewsRadio'' has claimed to be the Watergate informant Deep Throat on more than one occasion. It's also strongly implied that he is D.B. Cooper [[hottip:note: who hijacked a plane in 1971 to demand a ransom and two parachutes, then jumped when the plane was back in the air and was never seen again]] (explaining how he came to be rich).

Compare ItWillNeverCatchOn. A character who does a lot of these becomes BeenThereShapedHistory. 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.

** Piri Reis, a legendary Ottoman Admiral, was not an admiral by the time of the game, but the Assassins of Constantinople do jokingly call him "Piri" (Ottoman for "Admiral").
*** Actually, the word "Reis" means admiral.

** In ''PredatorConcreteJungle'', Major Phillips (the one that sent Dutch's team to the jungle in the first movie) claims the Predators [[PhlebotinumKilledTheDinosaurs 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 ''Film/AlienVsPredator'' movies.

* The entire ''SixteenThirtyTwo'' series is full of these.

* The entire ''{{1632}}'' series is full of these.

* ''WesternAnimation/Arthur'': Arthur tries to justify his breaking of a window to his sister DW that kids have done important things in history. He tells of how King Tut broke his dad's new sphinx with a baseball, the roman 'Arthurius' playing with his discus and cutting off the arms of the Venus de Milo, and an American kid hitting the Liberty bell and cracking it, with braying horses in the background.

* [[WesternAnimation/{{Arthur}}]]: Arthur tries to justiy his breaking of a window to his sister DW that kids have done importnat things in history. He tells of how King Tut broke his dad's new sphinx with a baseball, the roman 'Arthurius' playing with his discus and cutting of the arms of the Venus de Milo, and an american kid hitting the Liberty bell and cracking it, with braying horses in the background.

** 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 one ''{{Batman}}'' Elseworlds title set in the Old West, Batman is an agent of AbrahamLincoln who repeatedly asks Lincoln if he can come back to Washington, as he has reservations regarding the President's security precautions...

* ''Film/{{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 plainly shown in the movie) to be performed by The Comedian. Nite Owl punches out a mugger in front of a young [[{{Batman}} Bruce Wayne]] and his parents. Silhouette and her lesbian lover enact the VJ Day Parade embrace photo. Nite Owl II meets Creator/AndyWarhol who has made a painting of him. Ozymandias is greeted by [[RollingStones Mick Jagger]] and DavidBowie outside Studio54. More obscurely, the movie also shows Neil Armstrong saying, [[http://www.snopes.com/quotes/mrgorsky.asp "Good luck, Mr. Gorsky!"]].

* ''TheLeagueOfExtraordinaryGentlemen'' 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]].

*** Actually, the workd "Reis" means admiral.

* [[WesternAnimation/Arthur]]: Arthur tries to justiy his breaking of a window to his sister DW that kids have done importnat things in history. He tells of how King Tut broke his dad's new sphinx with a baseball, the roman 'Arthurius' playing with his discus and cutting of the arms of the Venus de Milo, and an american kid hitting the Liberty bell and cracking it, with braying horses in the background.

** Caesar is oblivious to Brutus' treacherous nature [[RunningGag through the series]]. One memorable scene has a furious Brutus draw his sword and Caesar telling him to sheath it before he hurts someone.

* ''ForeverKnight'' had a JackTheRipper episode, with the secret being that he was a strange, beastly vampire that [[TooSpicyForYogSothoth Lacroix couldn't fully drain]]. He also was responsible for the crimes of a few other serial killers later on.

* ''{{Series/Highlander}}'' has a couple of these, most notably Methos and his three buddies inspiring the legend of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Then there's the immortal who was Cleopatra's handmaiden...

* In the sixth book of ''TheDarkTower'', 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 trouble-making 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.

* Several times in ''TheDresdenFiles''. Most notably, the White Court of vampires had ''Literature/{{Dracula}}'' written as an all-purpose how-to guide for killing the rival Black Court, a godlike necromancer named Kemmler was responsible for WorldWarI, and Ebenezar [=McCoy=] caused Krakatoa and TheTunguskaEvent. There's plenty of others, though-- for instance, Bob's offhand mention of the last time a [[OurWerewolvesAreDifferent loup-garou]] got loose.