History Main / JuliusBeethovenDaVinci

* Dean Cain appeared on a season 7 episode of ''Series/{{Smallville}}'' as Doctor Curtis Knox, an immortal who had been, among other people, NapoleonBonaparte and JackTheRipper. Who is very likely Vandal Savage mentioned above under Comic Books. For added fun, Knox is dealt with by the MartianManhunter who's played by Phil Morris, the same guy who voiced Savage in the ''JusticeLeague'' animated series. [[spoiler:Which, in a very roundabout way, makes him TheDanza.]]

* [[Film/{{Patton}} George Patton]], one of the great American army generals of UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, thought he was an incarnation of the greatest generals in history (i.e. Creator/GaiusJuliusCaesar, one of NapoleonBonaparte's generals, etc.). He believed had been reincarnated multiple times to take part in almost all of the wars fought.
* It has been suggested, in a largely tongue-in-cheek manner, that TheDukeOfWellington's given name, "Arthur", signifies him as the reincarnation of KingArthur, who, according to legend, would return to defend Britain in its hour of need. This is also believed of UsefulNotes/WinstonChurchill, which both could be true seeing as Churchill was born twenty-two years after the Duke died.

* In his longest work "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward", Creator/HPLovecraft writes about a necromancer by the name of Joseph Curwen, who along with at least two other members of his cabal is seemingly unaffected by age. One of his confederates, who lived in Salem (during that time, you know what I'm talking about) moved away then returned, masquerading as his own son at Curwen's urging. Curwen himself, doesn't bother with this trick. They both get found out eventually, and both escape, in one form or another, from those determined to do them harm.

* The Immortal of ''ComicBook/{{Invincible}}'' went by AbrahamLincoln at one point. And yes, he ''did'' serve as president. However, he seems to have a fairly average human memory, and so remembers very little of his distant past -- he has only a faint recollection of being Lincoln, and a far-future version of him barely remembered anything about his present-day life.

* [[Film/{{Patton}} George Patton]], one of the great American army generals of WorldWarII, thought he was an incarnation of the greatest generals in history (i.e. Creator/GaiusJuliusCaesar, one of NapoleonBonaparte's generals, etc.). He believed had been reincarnated multiple times to take part in almost all of the wars fought.
* It has been suggested, in a largely tongue-in-cheek manner, that TheDukeOfWellington's given name, "Arthur", signifies him as the reincarnation of KingArthur, who, according to legend, would return to defend Britain in its hour of need. This is also believed of WinstonChurchill, which both could be true seeing as Churchill was born twenty-two years after the Duke died.
* It has been suggested that KeanuReeves may in fact be immortal. Pictures of him between 1994 and the late 2000s give almost no indication of aging, and it's been pointed out that he bears a striking resemblance to a late 19th century actor who disappeared rather mysteriously and the medieval King Charlemagne, who also had a rather suspicious death. [[http://keanuisimmortal.com/ See for yourself.]]
* An [[TheAmericanCivilWar American Civil War]]-era photo recently surfaced bearing an uncanny resemblance to NicolasCage, [[http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/entertainment/2011/09/is-nicolas-cage-a-vampire-from-the-civil-war-era/ causing some to speculate]] that he may be a {{Vampire}}.

* Creator/AlanMoore has been Poseidon, Odin, and [[RasputinTheMadMonk Rasputin]]. Don't believe it? Look at a picture of him.
** And the reason ''Comicbook/FromHell'' is so accurate? He is JackTheRipper, too. He wrote the notes because he knew he would end up an author, and he'd want to write about himself.
** [[http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/images/943.jpg John Brown]].

* The Immortal of ''ComicBook/{{Invincible}}'' went by AbrahamLincoln at one point. And yes, he ''did'' serve as president. However, he seems to have a fairly average human memory, and so remembers very little of his distant past; a future version had almost no memory of his present-day life, for instance.

* According to ''TheIlluminatusTrilogy'', {{Jesus}}, Simon Magus, HerbertHoover and Jean-Paul Sartre were all actually different personas of the same shape-shifting immortal [[TheTrickster trickster]] known as Malaclypse the Elder.

* A [[http://federicamazzilli.tumblr.com/post/53536117119/1-jack-dawson-won-a-ticket-to-go-on-the-titanic non-canon overview]] of ''{{Film/Titanic}}'' and ''{{Film/TheGreatGatsby}}'', two of LeonardoDiCaprio's films: "Jack Dawson won a ticket to go on the Titanic in 1912, fell in love with Rose and [[spoiler:when the ship sank everyone thought he was dead when he actually survived.]] He then changed his name to Jay Gatsby and ten years later moves to West Egg. He made parties hoping that one day he would see [[spoiler:Rose again]] but instead he meets Daisy. He then [[spoiler:dies in his pool, which he had never used after his fear of drowning in the Titanic."]]

* [[UsefulNotes/{{Hinduism}} Hindu god Vishnu]] is said to reincarnate on Earth whenever the ''dharma'' is in peril, his most famous reincarnations being [[Literature/{{Mahabharata}} Krishna]][[note]]Or his brother Balarama, [[DependingOnTheWriter based on whom you ask]][[/note]] and [[Literature/{{Ramayana}} Prince Rama]], but has also been said to have reincarnated as [[UsefulNotes/{{Buddhism}} Buddha]] (though [[AlternateCharacterInterpretation according to this view]], [[TakeThat he was actually trying to get a group of wicked people not to procreate]]). [[stealthPun God knows]] how many others he’s been over the ages...

* TheDCU magic user MadameXanadu was originally named [[KingArthur Nimue]].

** And depending on which of the never-meant-to-be-resolved [[MultipleChoicePast and several, contradictory, accounts of the origins of]] ThePhantomStranger you elect to believe, The Stranger may have been [[FlyingDutchman The Wandering Jew]].

* Odd variation in ''BladeOfTheImmortal'', in which the 200-year-old immortal Shizuma has plans along these lines, but one of the protagonists tells him that if he's never held power in his long life so far, he's never likely to.

* In a partial subversion, Nevyn, Master of the Aethyr, in the {{Deverry}} novels has shown up to play a major role in his country's history quite a few times, but he always does it under the same identity: the shabby old herbalist named Nevyn (save for the few times he temporarily uses his birth name of Galrion). But since he generally drops out of sight for twenty or thirty years between his major appearances, those people old enough to remember the old herbman named Nevyn from his previous appearance refuse to believe that the shabby old herbman named Nevyn who just rode into town could possibly be the same man. Those people who notice the multiple Nevyns across history assume the name is inherited (whether from father to son or master to apprentice is debated).

** Oliver Haddo from W. Somerset Maugham's ''The Magician'' is established to have had multiple identities; sometimes he faked his death and took on a new name, other times he outright possessed people. In all, he's been Karswell Trelawney (a double reference to M.R. James' ''Casting the Runes'' and Anthony Powell’s ''A Dance to the Music of Time''), Hjalmar Poelzig from Universal's ''The Black Cat'', Mocata from DennisWheatley's ''The Devil Rides Out'', Adrian Marcato from ''RosemarysBaby'', Kosmo Gallion from ''Series/TheAvengers'', Charles Felton from Robert Irwin’s ''Satan Wants Me'' and finally [[spoiler:Lord Voldemort]]. The linking factor is that most of these characetrs were based on AleisterCrowley.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'' parodied this when Calculon revealed he was all the great acting robots; Acting Unit 0.8, Thespomat, David Duchovny...

* The Emperor of ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'' is said to have been several influential people in Earth's history. So while He may be the CrystalDragonJesus in the game's universe, there's a very good chance that, in His universe, He was the ''Jesus'' Jesus, too.

** Jesus is actually about the least likely person for him to have been. The man has a serious hate for religion and straight up outlawed it when He was directly in charge.
*** Agreed, chances are Jesus was another very powerful Perpetual with a different philosophy to the Big E.
**** Or a middling-powerful psyker, levitation to walk on water, transmutation of matter and surviving being hung up for a bit aren't actually a big deal magic-wise in the 40k universe, and as for resurrecting, that can be done by basically anyone, just, y'know, [[DealWithTheDevil crapsack universe style]].
*** Another possibility may be that since the Chaos Gods either didn't exist or weren't very powerful at that time, He could've had a serious change of heart about faith as time progressed. The Emperor technically had a number of religious values without being religious, after all.

* AlanMoore has been Poseidon, Odin, and [[RasputinTheMadMonk Rasputin]]. Don't believe it? Look at a picture of him.
** And the reason FromHell is so accurate? He is JackTheRipper, too. He wrote the notes because he knew he would end up an author, and he'd want to write about himself.

* In ''TheNightAngelTrilogy'', [[spoiler: Acaelus Thorne, also known as Durzo Blint, Gaelan Starfire, and quite a few other aliases, has been the hero of every single historical legend told on his home continent for the past 700 years.]]

* [[Film/{{Patton}} George Patton]], one of the great American army generals of WorldWarII, thought he was an incarnation of the greatest generals in history (i.e. Creator/GaiusJuliusCaesar, NapoleonBonaparte, etc.).
** Patton didn't actually believe that he was Napoleon; however, he did believe that he had been reincarnated multiple times to take part in almost all of the wars fought and that he had been a general for Napoleon.
* It has been suggested, in a largely tongue-in-cheek manner, that TheDukeOfWellington's given name, "Arthur", signifies him as the reincarnation of KingArthur, who, according to legend, would return to defend Britain in its hour of need.
** No, no, wasn't that Sir WinstonChurchill?
** Could be both of them, depending on the turn-around time on reincarnation. Churchill was born 22 years after the Duke died.

* AlanMoore has been Poseidon, Odin, and [[RasputinTheMadMonk Rasputin]]. Don't believe me? Look at a picture of him.

** Fanon suggests Calculon is either crazy or lying, as we have seen the head of David Duchovny before. He would have had to have been David Duchovny ''before'' being the ''robot assembly arm''
** No, not ''that'' David Duchovny, the other one.

* In Twelve Monkeys, a psychiatric patient claims to be from the future, here to avert a disastrous, human-inflicted plague. At one point, his psychiatrist diagnoses him with Cassandra syndrome, a disease she identified based on historical examples. What the viewer can tell and she can't is that all those historical examples are him, living in various times when his time machine malfunctioned.

** {{Illuminatus}}! co-author Robert Anton Wilson later went on to pen an introduction to the ''Principia Discordia'' claiming that the book's author was actually a "time-travelling anthropologist from the 23rd Century," who "has visited Earth many times in the past, using such cover-identities as Zeno of Elias, Emperor Norton, Count Cagliostro, Guilliame of Aquaitaine, etc."

* In TheNightAngelTrilogy, [[spoiler: Acaelus Thorne, also known as Durzo Blint, Gaelan Starfire, and quite a few other aliases, has been the hero of every single historical legend told on his home continent for the past 700 years.]]