Rome never builds its first great road south, and an innkeeper's family on the old mule track stays the richest in the hills.Really: the first stretch of the Appian Way was built in 312 BC. Then: a road surveyor takes a room.
A time traveler shows the builders of a stone circle on an English plain a quicker way to raise a lintel.Really: the great stones of Stonehenge were set up between 2600 and 2400 BC. Back home: there are seven circles.
A time traveler on a school trip stamps out one ember in a London bakery in September 1666.Really: the Great Fire of London began in a bakery on Pudding Lane. Back home: her city is still a maze of wooden lanes.
A brass counting engine the size of a barn is actually finished, and a mill clerk is the first hired to feed it numbers.Really: such an engine was first described in 1837 and never built. Then: she finds its first mistake.
A cook in a medieval castle is sold a box of sticks that light when struck, and the boy who minds the fire is not needed.Really: the first successful friction match dates from 1826 or 1827. Then: he learns to make them.
A glassblower in ancient Rome grinds two lenses for his mother, who can no longer see her sewing.Really: the first eyeglasses were made in northern Italy in the late 1200s. Then: the whole street lines up.
A Greek fishing family in 300 BC owns a needle that always points north, and tells no one how.Really: Europe's first recorded use of a compass dates from around 1190. Then: a rival boat follows them out.
A lens grinder in ancient Athens puts two lenses in a tube and points it at the Moon.Really: the earliest known telescope appeared in 1608 in the Netherlands. Then: his neighbors ask what else it can see.
A lighthouse family in 1851 can talk to ships through the air, fifty years ahead of everyone else.Really: the first radio signal crossed the Atlantic in December 1901. Then: the harbor pilots lose their trade.
A lute maker in 1500 builds a keyboard that can play soft or loud, and the court's singers refuse to stand beside it.Really: the piano was invented in Italy around 1700. Then: his daughter plays it alone and fills the hall.
A medieval wheelwright builds a two-wheeled running machine for his daughter, who is always late for market.Really: the two-wheeled running machine was invented in 1817. Then: the carters' guild wants it banned.
A mill town in the year 900 gets a clock with gears, and the miller's family is paid to keep the town's hours.Really: Europe's first mechanical clocks date from around 1300. Then: for the first time, people are late.
A mine owner's daughter in 1704 puts a steam engine on wheels to haul coal, and the pit ponies' boy fears for his job.Really: a steam locomotive first hauled a load in 1804. Then: he asks to drive it.
A monastery's slowest copyist is given a machine that prints one letter at each press of a key.Really: the first commercial typewriters were sold in 1874. Then: he is the fastest in the room, and the least trusted.
A newspaper town in 1959 links every desk into one web of pages, and the paper's fact checker is the busiest person in it.Really: the World Wide Web was invented in 1989. Then: she is asked to check all of it.
A potter in Roman Alexandria hooks a spinning steam toy to her wheel, and the wheel turns by itself.Really: a steam-spun device, the aeolipile, was described in the 1st century AD. Then: her rivals want one.
A river town gets a printing press a hundred years early, and the only person who can read is the scribe it puts out of work.Really: Europe's printing press dates from around 1440. Then: he is hired to teach the town its letters.
A shepherd family strings a signal wire between two hills in 1737 and sells the valley its news an hour ahead.Really: the first commercial electric telegraph dates from 1837. Then: the next valley strings its own.
A small town gets pocket telephones in 1953, and its teenagers are the first in history who can be called home for supper.Really: a handheld mobile phone was first shown off in 1973. Then: they learn to lose the signal.
A tailors' guild in 1490 is offered a machine that sews, and meets to vote on whether to buy it or burn it.Really: the first sewing machine is generally dated to 1790. Then: the youngest tailor hides it at home.
A trader's widow in ancient Rome learns to make paper and undersells every papyrus dealer on her street.Really: papermaking began in China and reached Europe by the 11th century. Then: the dealers offer to buy her out.
An apothecary's apprentice in 1600 builds a stack of metal discs that gives a steady spark, and charges a penny a tingle.Really: the first electric battery, the voltaic pile, dates from 1799. Then: the guild asks what it is for.
Twin sisters in a farm valley in 1776 run a speaking wire between their kitchens, and gossip arrives before the visitor does.Really: the first telephone patent was granted in 1876. Then: every farm wants to be on the wire.
Something is never built 20
Australia never builds a capital between its two rival cities, and a sheep family on the chosen plain is never asked to sell.Really: Canberra, a compromise between Sydney and Melbourne, was founded in 1913. Then: the cities take turns.
The big highways of 1956 are never approved, and a family diner on a two-lane road keeps every truck driver in the state.Really: the Interstate system grew out of a highway act of 1956. Then: the cook's son wants to leave anyway.
The bridge over the East River is never built, and three generations of one ferry family carry Brooklyn to work.Really: the Brooklyn Bridge opened in 1883, the river's first fixed crossing. Then: the fourth draws bridges.
The canal across Panama is never finished, and a pilot's family at the foot of South America still guides ships round.Really: the Panama Canal opened on August 15, 1914. Then: the daughter knows the strait better than her father.
The canal at Suez is never cut, and a ship chandler's family at the tip of Africa supplies every ship bound for Asia.Really: the Suez Canal opened on November 17, 1869. Then: an engineer comes to dinner with a plan.
The canal from the Hudson River to Lake Erie is never dug, and a family of wagon drivers still hauls flour over the hills.Really: the Erie Canal was completed in 1825. Then: the youngest son draws a blue line on the map.
The first tunnel under the Thames is given up half dug, and a waterman's family keeps rowing London across.Really: the Thames Tunnel was built between 1825 and 1843. Then: the son is paid to guide a second attempt.
The iron tower built for the Paris fair of 1889 comes down in 1909, as planned, and a postcard seller needs a new picture.Really: the Eiffel Tower was slated for dismantling in 1909 and was kept. Then: his son photographs the gap.
The land for a great park in Manhattan is sold as building lots, and a goat keeper owns the last grass on the island.Really: work on Central Park began in 1857. Then: the city makes an offer, and then a larger one.
London votes against trains under its streets, and an omnibus family owns the one route that still moves at five o'clock.Really: the first passenger railway under a city opened there in 1863. Then: a rival buys a shovel.
The new capital on the Potomac is never built, and a Philadelphia innkeeper has lodged the government for two centuries.Really: a 1790 act made Philadelphia the capital only until a new one was ready. Then: the rent is overdue.
New York never digs its subway, and a streetcar driver's daughter is the one person who knows how to cross town by noon.Really: the New York City Subway opened on October 27, 1904. Then: she starts selling the route.
No railway ever crosses Siberia, and a post-road family keeps fresh horses for travelers who are a whole season on the way.Really: the Trans-Siberian Railway was built between 1891 and 1916. Then: a traveler stays the winter.
No telegraph cable is ever laid under the Atlantic, and a harbor boy rows out to meet each steamer for the news it carries.Really: the first messages crossed by cable on August 16, 1858. Then: he sells headlines before the paper does.
Rome never builds its first great road south, and an innkeeper's family on the old mule track stays the richest in the hills.Really: the first stretch of the Appian Way was built in 312 BC. Then: a road surveyor takes a room.
Rome never builds its wall across the north of Britain, and a farm that would have been cut in two stays whole.Really: Hadrian's Wall was begun in AD 122. Then: the family trades in both directions and is trusted in neither.
Steam railways never catch on, and a canal family's narrow boat is still the quickest way to send coal across England.Really: the first public steam railway opened on September 27, 1825. Then: a boy on the towpath builds an engine.
The telegraph never crosses the plains, and the Pony Express is still hiring riders forty years on.Really: the service ran for 18 months from 1860, until the telegraph came. Then: a rider's granddaughter applies.
The tunnel under the English Channel is still only a plan, and a ferry family has worked the crossing for a century.Really: the Channel Tunnel opened in 1994. Then: the daughter takes a job surveying the seabed.
The two halves of the first railroad across America miss each other by a mile, and neither company will move its track.Really: the line opened to through traffic on May 10, 1869. Then: one family runs the wagon between them.
A voyage or a find goes another way 20
A Bristol fishing crew finds open water all the way round the top of America in 1550 and comes home with tea.Really: the Northwest Passage was first sailed through in 1903 to 1906. Then: nobody believes the cabin boy's chart.
A fish with fins like legs is landed in South Africa in 1938, and the one person who might have known it is on vacation.Really: the coelacanth, thought long extinct, was described from fish caught there from 1938. Then: one scale is kept.
A French teenager's dog ignores a hole under a fallen tree in 1940, and the painted cave below stays dark.Really: Lascaux was found that September when a dog nosed at such a hole. Then: his granddaughter's dog does not.
A landowner in Suffolk sells her field of grassy mounds unopened, and the buyer plows them flat.Really: a ship burial full of treasure was found at Sutton Hoo in the late 1930s. Then: a plowman finds a buckle.
A marble statue dug up on a Greek island in 1820 is built into a farmer's wall, and stays there.Really: the Venus de Milo was found on Milos in 1820 and went to the Louvre in 1821. Then: his family charges to look.
A whaling captain sights the ice cliffs of the far south a century early and writes them off as fog.Really: people probably first saw Antarctica's ice shelves in 1820. Then: his daughter reads the log.
China's treasure fleet is never called home, and a shipwright's family is building for the fortieth voyage.Really: the Ming fleet made seven voyages between 1405 and 1433. Then: the youngest stows away to see where they go.
The climbers of 1924 come down from the top of the highest mountain, and a porter's village is famous thirty years early.Really: the first confirmed ascent of Everest was on May 29, 1953. Then: his son is asked to guide the next.
Clouds cover Tahiti on the one June morning in 1769 when an expedition has crossed the world to watch Venus pass the Sun.Really: the transit was recorded from Tahiti on June 3, 1769. Then: the youngest observer asks when the next is.
The diggers in the Valley of the Kings give up one season early, and one last tomb stays shut.Really: the tomb of Tutankhamun was found there in November 1922. Then: a digger's granddaughter opens his notebook.
Farmers in Shaanxi sink their new well fifty paces to the east in 1974 and find only water.Really: farmers digging a well found the Terracotta Army that year. Then: one boy keeps turning up clay fingers.
The fleet sent round Africa to India in 1497 turns back at the cape, and a Venice spice merchant's family keeps its prices.Really: the voyage of 1497 to 1499 was the first recorded by sea from Europe to India. Then: a nephew sails.
The ice of the Weddell Sea lets one ship through in 1915, and its crew walks across Antarctica exactly as planned.Really: the ice trapped and crushed the Endurance, stranding 28 men. Then: the crossing succeeds, and is a footnote.
The last ship of a fleet sent west to the Spice Islands turns back in the Pacific, and a Seville mapmaker leaves half his globe blank.Really: the fleet left Spain in 1519, and one ship came home in 1522, the first to circle the Earth. Then: his daughter fills it in.
The Moon flights do not stop in 1972, and a welder's daughter grows up in a town that builds one lander a year.Really: Apollo 17, in December 1972, is still the last time people walked on the Moon. Then: she applies to go.
The naturalist's berth on a five-year survey voyage goes to a vicar's nephew, who is seasick and never leaves his cabin.Really: HMS Beagle's survey ran from 1831 to 1836 with a naturalist of 22 aboard. Then: the cabin boy collects.
Nobody in an English quarry village thinks the giant bones are worth keeping, and the word dinosaur is never needed.Really: Megalosaurus, named in 1824, was the first dinosaur to be named. Then: a quarryman's daughter keeps a tooth.
The Norse settlers in Newfoundland stay, and a boat builder's family there has been launching longships for a thousand years.Really: the Norse site at L'Anse aux Meadows dates to about 1,000 years ago. Then: a sail from Spain arrives.
The ships that sail west from Spain in 1492 find only water, week after week, and turn for home.Really: the fleet sighted land on October 12, 1492. Then: a sailor's family tells it as a joke for a generation.
The soldiers who dig up a carved slab in Egypt in 1799 build it into a wall, face inward, and nobody reads hieroglyphs.Really: the Rosetta Stone, found in July 1799, was the key to reading Egyptian scripts. Then: the wall cracks.
A small thing goes the other way 20
A small town lets its women vote in 1793, a hundred years before any nation does.Really: in 1893 New Zealand was the first nation to give all women the vote. Then: the first elected mends the bridge.
The astronomers' vote of 2006 goes the other way, and a planetarium guide keeps her nine-planet speech.Really: in 2006 astronomers redefined the word planet, and Pluto no longer counted. Then: someone proposes a tenth.
The banana everyone ate before the 1950s never dies out, and a fruit seller's family never has to learn a new one.Really: the Gros Michel was the main banana until the 1950s, when disease all but ended it. Then: one sick leaf.
The computer bug feared for the first day of 2000 really bites, and a programmer's house is the only one with its lights on.Really: 2000 came with few big failures. Then: the neighbors come over with candles.
Every school teaches the same invented second language from 1900 on, and two feuding families on a border can finally argue.Really: Esperanto was created in 1887 as a universal second language. Then: their children invent a third.
France does not sell its land west of the Mississippi in 1803, and a river pilot's family works a border in midstream.Really: the United States bought the Louisiana territory from France in 1803. Then: the son takes work on the far bank.
France keeps its ten-hour day, and a clockmaker's family in Lyon has sold nothing but ten-hour dials for two centuries.Really: France divided the day into ten hours from 1794 to 1800. Then: a tourist asks the time and gets a lesson.
The games at Olympia are never stopped, and one olive-growing family has rented rooms to athletes for a hundred generations.Really: the last recorded ancient Olympic Games were held in AD 393. Then: this year's guest wins and stays.
Keyboards are laid out from A to Z, and a typing teacher's family has taught the alphabet row for five generations.Really: the QWERTY layout comes from a typewriter sold from 1874. Then: a pupil proposes something faster.
The land of geysers is never made a park, and a hotel family owns the famous one and sells a ticket to each eruption.Really: Yellowstone became the first US national park on March 1, 1872. Then: the geyser stops keeping time.
The mountain above Pompeii stays quiet in AD 79, and a baker's family there is still baking under the same roof.Really: the city was buried by the eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79. Then: the youngest digs a cellar and finds nothing.
New Amsterdam is never taken, and a baker's family there has sold the same almond cookies in Dutch for four hundred years.Really: the English took New Amsterdam in 1664 and renamed it New York. Then: the heir wants an English sign.
New York cannot pay for a pedestal, and a statue from France, still in its crates, goes to the first city that can.Really: the Statue of Liberty was dedicated in New York on October 28, 1886. Then: another harbor gets a skyline.
Nobody thinks to broadcast, radio stays a tool for ships, and a town's evenings still belong to its piano teacher.Really: the first commercial radio broadcast went out on November 2, 1920. Then: her pupil builds a transmitter.
The potato never catches on in Europe, and one stubborn family is the only one in a mountain village that plants it.Really: the Spanish brought potatoes to Europe in the late 1500s. Then: after one bad harvest, the village knocks.
Shoppers refuse bread that comes already sliced, and a baker's family goes back to selling whole loaves and one good knife.Really: sliced bread was first sold in 1928. Then: nothing is ever the best thing since it.
The summer of 1816 is warm after all, and a New England farm family that had packed for the West unpacks.Really: 1816 was the Year Without a Summer, after an eruption in 1815. Then: the town they would have founded never is.
Sweden calls off its switch to driving on the right, and a driving instructor's family teaches every visitor the left.Really: Sweden switched from the left to the right on September 3, 1967. Then: the son learns abroad, backward.
The United States goes fully metric in 1975, and a hardware store family spends one summer relabeling every bolt.Really: the Metric Conversion Act of 1975 left the change voluntary. Then: Grandpa keeps one drawer in inches.
The world's mapmakers choose Paris, not Greenwich, as zero on every map, and a Greenwich tea shop never sees a tourist.Really: an 1884 conference recommended the Greenwich meridian. Then: the owner paints her own line on the floor.
A time traveler changes one thing 20
A time traveler books passage on a great liner in April 1912 only to tap the lookout on the shoulder a minute early.Really: the Titanic sank on April 15, 1912, after striking an iceberg. Back home: no one knows the ship's name.
A time traveler corrects one mapmaker in 1650 who is drawing California as an island.Really: maps regularly showed California as an island from 1622. Back home: her own atlas has a different mistake.
A time traveler cuts in line in Paris in November 1783 and becomes the first person ever to fly.Really: the first free balloon flight with people aboard was on November 21, 1783. Back home: the statue has her face.
A time traveler in the cheap seats of a London playhouse in June 1613 puts out a spark before it catches.Really: the Globe Theatre burned down on June 29, 1613, and was rebuilt within a year. Back home: the first one stands.
A time traveler leans on a windowsill in France in the summer of 1827 while an inventor's camera is at work.Really: the oldest surviving photograph was made from a window in 1827. Back home: there is an elbow in it.
A time traveler leaves a ballpoint pen on a medieval copyist's desk.Really: the first ballpoint pen patent dates from 1888. Back home: every old manuscript has a blue doodle in its margin.
A time traveler leaves one boot print on the Moon the day before the first crew lands in July 1969.Really: the first crewed Moon landing, by Apollo 11, was on July 20, 1969. Back home: the print is in every schoolbook.
A time traveler loses a pocketful of clockwork overboard near a Greek island, two thousand years too soon.Really: a geared device of the 2nd century BC was found in a wreck in 1901. Back home: it is in a museum, a mystery.
A time traveler on a school trip stamps out one ember in a London bakery in September 1666.Really: the Great Fire of London began in a bakery on Pudding Lane. Back home: her city is still a maze of wooden lanes.
A time traveler outbids the buyer when London sells its old bridge in 1968.Really: the bridge was sold that year and rebuilt in Arizona by 1971. Back home: a desert town has a lake and no bridge.
A time traveler pockets one shiny flake from a sawmill ditch in California in January 1848.Really: the gold rush began when gold was found at a sawmill on January 24, 1848. Back home: her town was never founded.
A time traveler sets the dial for London on September 5, 1752, a date that never happened there.Really: in Britain, September 2, 1752, was followed by September 14. Back home: the machine is still looking.
A time traveler shows the builders of a stone circle on an English plain a quicker way to raise a lintel.Really: the great stones of Stonehenge were set up between 2600 and 2400 BC. Back home: there are seven circles.
A time traveler takes the last seat at a film show in Paris in 1895, and a boy who would have made films is turned away.Really: ten short films were shown to a paying public on December 28, 1895. Back home: no cinemas.
A time traveler trips a thief on his way out of the Louvre in 1911 with a small portrait under his coat.Really: the Mona Lisa's fame partly stems from its theft in 1911. Back home: nobody lines up to see it.
A time traveler whispers the word sell to one tulip trader in January 1637.Really: tulip prices collapsed in February 1637. Back home: her family has owned a canal house for four hundred years.
A time traveler who only wanted a photograph of the first airplane flight stands in the wrong place on a windy day in 1903.Really: the first sustained powered airplane flight was on December 17, 1903. Back home: the airport is a field of balloons.
A time-traveling engineer quietly firms up the ground under a bell tower in Pisa before the builders arrive.Really: the tower began leaning in the 12th century, mid-construction. Back home: nobody has heard of it.
A time-traveling shipwright adds ballast to a king's new warship the night before its first sail in 1628.Really: the Vasa sank on August 10, 1628, about 1,300 meters into its first voyage. Back home: her museum is gone.
A time-traveling zookeeper ships a pair of dodos from Mauritius to a farm in Holland in 1650.Really: the last dodo sighting most accept dates to 1662. Back home: the bird is a farmyard pest.
How it works
Each of these 100 alternate history story ideas changes one real event and follows an invented family, town or time traveler through it. The line under it gives what really happened, with its date, and the first thing that changes.
Read the full guide
Ideas for an alternative history story, by what changes
Four groups sort the premises by the kind of change: An invention arrives early, Something is never built, A voyage or a find goes another way, and A small thing goes the other way. No real person is a character and no war is the hinge. The changes are a road, a vote, a crop, a dog that ignores a hole.
Time travel alternative history short story ideas
In the group A time traveler changes one thing, a visitor from the future puts out one ember, takes one seat or pockets one flake of gold. Each line ends with Back home: what is different when the traveler returns. One small change and one visible result is the right size for a short story.
Pick the smallest change that does the job. A sliced loaf nobody buys is easier to believe than a lost empire.
Tell it through someone the change helps or hurts by Friday, not through a king.
Questions and answers
What is alternate history?
Speculative fiction where at least one event of history goes another way than it really did. A story starts from a point of divergence, the change itself, and follows what comes of it.
How do I come up with an alternate history story idea?
Start from a real event with a date, change one thing about it and ask who notices first. On this list no telegraph cable is ever laid under the Atlantic, and a harbor boy rows out to meet each steamer for its news.
Can a time travel story be alternate history?
Yes, when the traveler changes the past and the story shows the world that follows. Since the 1950s many alternate histories have used time travel between timelines. Here a traveler stamps out one ember in a London bakery in 1666.
Are the events on this list real?
The event behind each premise is real. The line that begins Really gives it, as read in the encyclopedia article on that event, named under the list. The families, towns and time travelers are invented.