Exactly as the title says, what is the oldest known Alternate History story to appear on the Internet?
Oldest AH story on the Internet
- Thread starter Etruscan-enthusiast35
- Start date
Either one, though one that could still be easily found and not just as some scraps of a defunct blog or website would be preferable.
I recall in 1997 when the internet was still young, there were several online fan pages for he pen& paper RPG Castle Falkenstein, which was basically a steampunk setting with elves and dwarfs. I guess this counts as Alternate History and world-building as most of the pages were about reimagining the author's home country in an alternate 1850's. But as popular as Castle Falkenstein was from it's release in 1994 on, there are probably Usenet discussion groups on world-building in the CF universe that go back even further.
USENET group "alt.history.what-if" was already active in 1993; when the Internet became open to the public. Alas, none of it's archived, but I found a cite for a thread title "WWI: Lusitania not sunk".
Correction: Holy crap, "alt.history.what-if" is still archived, here is the apparent first thread from April 1993.
https://groups.google.com/forum/m/#...First$20post"/alt.history.what-if/doz1P1mNd-4
https://groups.google.com/forum/m/#...rst$20post$22/alt.history.what-if/doz1P1mNd-4
https://groups.google.com/forum/m/#...First$20post"/alt.history.what-if/doz1P1mNd-4
https://groups.google.com/forum/m/#...rst$20post$22/alt.history.what-if/doz1P1mNd-4
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