History Main / InThePastEveryoneWillBeFamous

Note that this only counts if you're not specifically aiming for the famous person. For example, ''Film/BillAndTed'' don't count because A: they were actually ''trying'' to find UsefulNotes/GenghisKhan and Sigmund "Frood", and B: they had the help of a magic phone directory to find them. Though, even then, other well-known personages from the same period may crop up unexpectedly (UsefulNotes/NapoleonBonaparte ended up piggybacking with them by mistake, for instance).

* ''Literature/InfernoLarryNivenAndJerryPournelle'': As they travel through Hell, Allen and Benito come across a steady stream of interesting individuals in a manner much like Dante and Vergil's. Most examples of the different layers are either someone famous, such as Billy the Kid in the circle of the violent, Tammany Hall among the corrupt politicians, Jesse James among the thieves and Henry VIII among the schismatics, or someone known to Carpent(i)er, such as a couple with extreme opposite environmental beliefs. The characters discuss this when crossing the 8th Ring, noting that Dante met an "improbable number" of Italians peppered with Greek and Roman heroes, while in their own trip they mostly met Americans; Benito also recalls encountering a lot of Germans while escorting a German woman. They chalk it up to people preferentially noting their fellows over strangers.

** Marty managed to avoid anyone more famous than the cousin of Music/ChuckBerry (although the {{novelization}} of ''Film/BackToTheFuturePartIII'' claims the kid who asks him what a movie is was D.W. Griffith), but he bumped into relatives without trying in both the [[Film/BackToTheFuture first]] and third movies (and let's not even get into the [[WesternAnimation/BackToTheFuture animated series]]). Everything did take place in the same town in California, though.

[[folder:Real Life]]
* In January 1913, Vienna's [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Café_Central Café Central]] was patronized by UsefulNotes/JosipBrozTito, UsefulNotes/SigmundFreud, UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler, UsefulNotes/VladimirLenin and UsefulNotes/LeonTrotsky (the last two as regulars). Of these, only Freud had done by then [[AllPsychologyIsFreudian the thing]] for which he is famous today. The list of other famous (but not as famous) patrons is too long to reasonably fit here.
* In 1509, the Spanish ship ''Caprichosa'' left Santo Domingo to investigate why they had lost contact with Fort San Sebastián near the Darien Gap, the then westernmost outpost of the Spanish Empire. They left behind a young, sick sailor named UsefulNotes/HernanCortez; found a young stowaway named [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasco_Nuñez_de_Balboa Vasco Núñez de Balboa]]; rescued a young soldier named [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francisco_Pizarro Francisco Pizarro]]; and learned that world famous cartographer [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_de_la_Cosa Juan de la Cosa]] had died in battle with the natives, and that his partner the expedition leader [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alonso_de_Ojeda Alonso de Ojeda]] had been kidnapped by pirates... Pirates that then run aground on still uncolonized Cuba and were rescued by [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panfilo_de_Narvaez Pánfilo de Narváez]]. However, given how small the first caravels that crossed the Atlantic were (about two school buses-length, in the case of the Santa María), it is perhaps not surprising that the same names keep appearing in the early colonization of the Americas.
* The port of Darwin, Australia, was named in 1839 by Captain John Wickham after his former shipmate, UsefulNotes/CharlesDarwin, who would catapult to immortality two decades later.
[[/folder]]

* ''Film/TheManFromEarth'' has the titular 14,000-year-old character ([[MeaningfulName John Oldman]], [[IncrediblyLamePun har har]]) recall close meetings with UsefulNotes/ChristopherColumbus, Creator/VincentVanGogh, Buddha, in addition to [[spoiler: [[JuliusBeethovenDaVinci being Jesus]], though [[EveryoneIsJesusInPurgatory probably not in Purgatory]]]].

* Creator/GoreVidal's ''Literature/Creation1981'' is essentially a guided tour through the Ancient World of 4th Century B.C. , where the hero Cyrus Spitama grows up in Persia alongside Xerxes and Artemisia in the court of Darius and Atossa. He himself witnesses Zoroaster's death and is his grandson and heir. He later visits India and meets Vardhaman Mahavira, Gautama Buddha, King Bimbisara and King Ajatashatru. Then he visits China and meets Creator/{{Confucius}}. In Greece, he meets Pericles, Herodotus, Aspasia, Creator/Socrates and others and also Themistocles and Thucydides for good measure. SeenItAll doesn't begin to define him.

** Other famous people who show up: William Henry Harrison and [[Creator/HonoreDeBalzac Honoré de Balzac]], and a recurring role for Tecumseh's brother Tenskwatawa.
*** Plus Denmark Vesey, Mike Fink, and John James Audubon.

* [[http://dresdencodak.com/cartoons/dc_040.html Kimiko]] is on the receiving end of this in ''Webcomic/DresdenCodak''.

* Justified in ''VideoGame/TheAmazonTrail'' series of games, since the Jaguar's blue mists specifically send you to the points in time when those famous figures are present in the Amazon for the sake of educational content (both in and out of character; the locations would be less interesting if they weren't populated with famous scientists like Alfred Russell Wallace and Richard Evans Schultes, famous conquistadores likes Lope de Aguirre and Francisco de Orellana, and other famous figures like Henry Ford and Teddy Roosevelt; but also, the Jaguar wants you to interact with those characters to gain wisdom and to complete specific objectives like saving Teddy Roosevelt's life, so he specifically sends you to those places for your growth on your journey).

* Creator/GoreVidal's ''Literature/{{Creation}}'' is essentially a guided tour through the Ancient World of 4th Century B.C. , where the hero Cyrus Spitama grows up in Persia alongside Xerxes and Artemisia in the court of Darius and Atossa. He himself witnesses Zoroaster's death and is his grandson and heir. He later visits India and meets Vardhaman Mahavira, Gautama Buddha, King Bimbisara and King Ajatashatru. Then he visits China and meets Creator/{{Confucius}}. In Greece, he meets Pericles, Herodotus, Aspasia, Creator/Socrates and others and also Themistocles and Thucydides for good measure. SeenItAll doesn't begin to define him.

* The ''VideoGame/ShadowHearts'' series features a degree of the historical fiction version, with the heroes bumping into such famous historical personages as Kawashima Yoshiko (As a note, the little girl in the second game is supposed to be the historical one -- the one in the first game is a wholly fictional character, who, according to the series, is the namesake of the real one), UsefulNotes/AlCapone, Creator/HPLovecraft, and the Great Gama (yes, he was a real person - ask Wiki/TheOtherWiki). Party members over the series include UsefulNotes/MataHari (under her actual name, Margarete) and Princess Anastasia Romanov.

** He also ran into a black busboy at a diner in 1955 who responds to his boss telling him to get back to work by stating that he's going to be someone. Marty, recognizing him, states that he's going to be mayor. The busboy thinks its merely a motivational suggestion, while his boss laughs off the idea of a black man being mayor.

* In ''VideoGame/DayOfTheTentacle'', a character gets stranded 200 years in the past. Without even leaving the house, he runs into UsefulNotes/GeorgeWashington, UsefulNotes/ThomasJefferson, Creator/BenjaminFranklin, John Hancock and Betsy Ross. Which is really silly given that Jefferson wasn't even in the same country as the others at the time that this was implied to be occurring in. This is just one of the many historical errors in that game, which the programmers were aware of. The manual even warns you to not use the game as research material.

* ''Film/BenHur'': Ben Hur meets UsefulNotes/JesusChrist twice! First when Jesus offers him water when he is CrossingTheDesert as a slave and second when he sees Jesus being crucified.

* ''Mostly'' averted in ''Series/QuantumLeap'', where the majority of the characters Sam becomes are ordinary people -- but he ''does'' run into Music/BuddyHolly, a young Music/MichaelJackson, Creator/SylvesterStallone, UsefulNotes/BillClinton, and a teenage Creator/StephenKing, who decides to become a horror writer thanks to him. He also became Lee Harvey Oswald, Music/ElvisPresley and Dr. Ruth in other episodes.

* ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' visited 19th century San Francisco in "Time's Arrow", and Samuel Clemens (Creator/MarkTwain) tried to stop their "invasion". (He also gives a spot of writing advice to an ambitious bellhop who just happens to be named Creator/JackLondon.) Later, in TheMovie, they went back in time and ended up protecting the creator of their AppliedPhlebotinum. (Justified, in that the time travel was initiated by the BigBad. Naturally they picked an important place and time to attack, namely the first test flight of a Terran ship warp drive that would attract the attention of the Vulcans to begin open interaction with that planet.)