Simply put, it's taking a well-known person from Real Life history and using this person as a character in a story. This does mean any work of that kind, whether it's Historical Fiction, a Hollywood History story, a piece of Alternate History, or a well-researched and accurate biopic of events. Needless to say, there isn't necessarily any similarity in personality between the real person and the character in the story. They may even be classical composers who were secretly sleeper agents for extraterrestrials. Whatever works.
Naturally this covers a lot of works (save for non-fiction), but given how often people can disagree about real history and our present, it would be hard to draw a line between which fictional works would fit and which fictional works wouldn't. Thus all are included.
Note that despite this trope having "Historical" in the name, present-day living people are also included in this list, as long as they have a very significant social impact or cultural legacy that will cause them to be remembered in future media. Please remove troping in these people's pages as you browse.
Obviously, the vast majority of (in)famous historical figures are long deceased. If a story mentions real-life dead people by characters living in the present-day, or if they're featured in historical flashbacks, then they also double as Posthumous Characters. Also compare this trope with Public Domain Character, Anonymous Ringer, Roman à Clef, and Real-Person Fic.
Examples:
- Anime & Manga
- Comic Books
- Fan Works
- Film
- Literature
- Live-Action TV
- Theatre
- Video Games
- Webcomics
- Western Animation
- Other Media
Subtropes:
- Allohistorical Allusion
- Beethoven Was an Alien Spy: It's revealed that a historical figure had an unusual or extraordinary aspect of their life that isn't recorded in the history books.
- Julius Beethoven da Vinci: Multiple historical figures were actually the aliases of an immortal being.
- You Will Be Beethoven: A time-traveler accidentally kills a historical figure or finds that the historical figure did not exist, so they decide to take on the identity of the historical figure to secure the timestream.
- The Dead Rise to Advertise: Deceased celebrities are used to endorse products in commercials.
- Fictionalized Death Account: A work of fiction has a historical figure die in a different way from how they died in real life.
- Historical Badass Upgrade: A work of fiction makes a historical figure more impressive than their real-life counterpart.
- Historical Beauty Update: A historical figure is depicted as being more attractive than they were in real life.
- Historical Character's Fictional Relative
- Historical Domain Crossover
- Historical Downgrade
- Historical Figures in Archival Media
- Historical Gender Flip: A historical figure is depicted as a different gender or sex than they were in real life.
- Historical Hero Upgrade: A historical figure is depicted as more heroic and benevolent than they were in real life.
- Historical Hilarity
- Historical In-Joke
- Historical Person Punchline
- Historical Relationship Overhaul
- Historical Ugliness Update
- Historical Villain Downgrade: A malevolent historical figure has their atrocities downplayed, but isn't necessarily depicted in a more favorable light.
- Historical Villain Upgrade: A historical figure is depicted as a worse person than they were in real life.
- In the Past, Everyone Will Be Famous
- No Historical Figures Were Harmed
- Real-Person Cameo
- Richard Nixon, the Used Car Salesman
- Young Future Famous People
