As a series that has a plot revolving around the entirety of human history, several parts of the Assassin's Creed universe involve giving the player either a front seat to major historical events, allowing them to cause said important events, meeting and interacting with historical figures, and potentially even killing said figures.
This is an attempt at a comprehensive list of these occasions.
Examples are sorted by game in order of release, starting with Assassin's Creed in 2007. Each folder also contains a brief summary of when each game takes place, during which major historical event.
Video Games
Assassin's Creed takes place during the Third Crusade in the year 1191.
- Altaïr Ibn La'Ahad was at the Battle of Arsuf, encouraging Richard The Lion Heart to open negotiations with Saladin. Richard did open negotiations after Arsuf, but they failed to end the conflict. He also kills Robert de Sable
there in the game's continuity.
Assassin's Creed II and Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood take place during the Italian Renaissance, during the years 1476-1499 AD for the former and 1499-1507 for the latter. Assassin's Creed: Revelations takes place in the Ottoman Empire in 1511-1513.
Assassin's Creed II:
- Ezio was close friends with the one and only Leonardo da Vinci, and assisted him in testing out several of his inventions. He also got a good look at an unfinished version of The Mona Lisa and purchased some of his other paintings (and other masters' works) such as the Annunciation.
- Ezio dated Amerigo Vespucci's cousin.
- Ezio personally defended Lorenzo de' Medici from an assassination attempt during the Pazzi Conspiracy at Florence's cathedral and escorted him to safety, killed Francesco de' Pazzi and hung his body from the Palazzo della Signoria, then he personally hunted down and assassinated his co-conspirators.
- Ezio was involved with no less than three consecutive doges of Venice — Giovanni Mocenigo (failed to protect and framed for the killing), Marco Barbarigo (assassinated by Ezio), and Agostino Barbarigo (succeeded Marco)
- Ezio was also involved with the infamous "Bonfire of the Vanities", mercy-killing the mad monk Girolamo Savanarola (Rodrigo Borgia's papacy would take the credit).
- Ezio assisted one Cristoforo Colombo before the latter sailed to the New World.
- Ezio also fought in the conflict following the death of the lord of Forlì and Imola, being there when Caterina Sforza taunted her enemies by lifting her dress.
- Ezio got into a fist fight with Pope Alexander VI.
- Ezio is responsible for the invention of the latte. No, really. Upon being served coffee, he states that it could use more milk. And that's that.
Assassin's Creed Brotherhood:
- Ezio was friends with Niccolò Machiavelli, helping him in his cause. It's also implied that Ezio gave Machiavelli the idea of virtù.
- According to the lead writer for Brotherhood, when Machiavelli mentioned that he intended to write a book about Ezio one day, that book would ironically be The Prince. The novelization of the game even has Machiavelli taking notes during Ezio's speeches.
- Ezio saw the death of Pope Alexander VI.
- Ezio threw Cesare Borgia from a wall to his death in 1507.
Assassin's Creed Revelations:
- Ezio dated the model for Albrecht Dürer's Portrait of a Venetian Woman and married her later.
- Ezio befriended a young Suleiman the Magnificent.
- Ezio caused the death of Manuel Palaiologos.
- Ezio also caused the death of Prince Şehzade Ahmed.
Assassin's Creed III is set both during the American Revolution and the Seven Years' War during the years 1754 to 1783.
- Connor was there to assist the revolutionaries with much of the American Revolution.
- He was one of the participants of the Boston Tea Party.
- He tried to stop the Boston Massacre, but was unsuccessful and was framed as a cause for it.
- He was at the battlefield of Bunker Hill, killing troops while pursuing his target.
- He was present during the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
- Haytham and Connor both brush shoulders with the Founding Fathers of the United States, like George Washington and Benjamin Franklin.
- Connor also works with Samuel Adams, Paul Revere, and Israel Putnam during this game.
- Connor is present at the battles of Concord (where he personally commands the Colonists at the battle of the Old North Bridge), Lexington, and Bunker Hill (he assassinates the British commander, John Pitcairn), stops the Templars from killing George Washington, causes the death of the Admiral of the Continental Navy, causes the shelling of New York, and kills Charles Lee; in the PS3/PC-exclusive Benedict Arnold missions he's also the man responsible for uncovering the plot to sell out West Point, then personally turns back an attempted British invasion of West Point.
Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag is set during The Golden Age of Piracy between the years of 1715-1722.
- Edward was friends with several prominent pirates during the Golden Age of Piracy, including Edward "Blackbeard" Thatch, Benjamin Hornigold, Mary Read, Anne Bonny, Stede Bonnet, and several more.
- Edward fought alongside Blackbeard during his final fight, witnessing his beheading.
- Mary Read was an Assassin and friend of Edward, using the alias of James Kidd to hide her true identity.
- Edward was the one to take down Bartholomew Roberts, AKA Black Bart.
- Anne Bonny, who vanished from the history books after her imprisonment, escaped prison alongside Edward and went on to become his quartermaster.
Assassin's Creed Rogue is set during the French and Indian War from 1752 to 1760.
- In a surprisingly dark variant of this, in a series that usually has the protagonists causing the GOOD parts of history, Shay inadvertently caused one of the worst natural disasters in human history, the 1755 Lisbon Earthquake, by messing with a First Civilization artifact.
- Shay helped Benjamin Franklin for one of his experiences.
Assassin's Creed: Unity is set during the French Revolution between the years 1789 to 1794 AD, not including the prologue.
- Arno was one of the prisoners in the Bastille during the storming of it alongside the Marquis de Sade.
- In real life, historians debate how Maximilien Robespierre was shot in the jaw. Some say he did it in a Bungled Suicide attempt to avoid punishment, some say he was shot by revolutionaries. In the world of Assassin's Creed, it was done not by Arno, revolutionaries, or Robespierre himself, but by Elise, who shoots him in the jaw to get information by making him write it down.
- The entire French Revolution is revealed have been orchestrated by the Templars.
Assassin's Creed Syndicate is set during the Industrial Revolution in 1868 AD, during the Victorian Era of London. It also includes two separate historical events that take place decades after the main story. A section dedicated to Jacob's descendant Lydia during World War I is included in the base game, whilst a DLC story revolving around Jack the Ripper takes place 20 years after the main plot.
- Jacob (literally) bumps into Charles Dickens, causing him to drop a bunch of pages from a recent novel he's been writing. Yes, Jacob is the reason Charles Dickens was not able to finish one of his novels.
- Evie is the reason we have the far more sensible word "Telephone" rather than Alexander Graham Bell's initial, and far worse, name for his invention.
- In a similar vein to Rogue's use of this trope in a negative way, the Jack the Ripper DLC has the revelation that Jack the Ripper was an Assassin, brought into the Brotherhood by Jacob before he began his killing spree.
Assassin's Creed Origins takes place during the Ptolemaic Period spanning the years of 48-38 BC. It is set in the deserts of Ancient Egypt.
- Bayek and Aya both spend a large part of the game trying to help Cleopatra secure the throne from her brother, Ptolemy.
- The game's final main assassination mission is against Julius Caesar himself. He is stabbed first by Aya, before being stabbed by the other senators, including Brutus, who is an ally of the Hidden Ones.
Assassin's Creed: Odyssey is set in 431 BC, taking place during the Peloponnesian War in Ancient Greece.
- The Eagle Bearer brushes shoulders with tons of renowned scholars of the Greek age.
- The Eagle Bearer is a relative of both Leonidas and Pythagoras.
- The Eagle Bearer can assist Hippokrates in forming the Hippocratic Oath.
- Darius, a proto-Hidden One, is the one responsible for the death of the Persian king Xerxes I via the first use of the Hidden Blade.
Assassin's Creed: Valhalla is set during the Viking Invasion of Europe during 872-878 AD.
- Eivor and her clan of Vikings form alliances with several prominent Vikings and other groups throughout Anglo-Saxon England, including the Sons of Ragnar.
- Eivor plays a large role in the Battle of Chippenham, exiling Aelfred the Great, the Grand Maegester of Order of the Ancients. Aelfred turns out to despise the organization and uses Eivor to destroy it from within so he can rebuild it under Christian principles, creating the Knights Templar after the game's events.
- By extension, Eivor takes the place of Ubba the Viking in this battle, as he is Killed Offscreen in the game.
Assassin's Creed: Mirage is set during the reign of the Abbasid Caliphate during the early Islamic Golden Age in Baghdad, during the year 861-864 AD.
- Nehal, actually Basim, is responsible for the death of Al-Mutawakkil Ala Allah, the real-life tenth Caliph during the Abbasid Caliphate's reign.
Other Media
Assassin's Creed is set in late 1491-early 1492, during the fall of the final remnant of Moorish Spain, the Emirate of Granada.
- Aguilar de Nerha almost got burned at the stake in front of Tomás de Torquemada and The Catholic Monarchs.
- Aguilar protected an Apple of Eden Torquemada wanted to take from the defeated sultan Abu Abdallah Muhammad XII "Boabdil", and nearly killed Torquemada.
- Aguilar personally knew Christopher Columbus and entrusted him with the Apple before his first travel to The Americas.
