History BeethovenWasAnAlienSpy / LiveActionTV

* ''Series/{{Sanctuary}}'' tells us in its first episode that Jack The Ripper is an ageless metahuman with the power of teleportation, who was a pretty nice guy until the cumulative brain damage caused by the use of his powers drove him murderously insane. Oh, and he's father of one of the series regulars, having once been engaged to Dr. Magnus. A handful of episodes later, we discover that UsefulNotes/NikolaTesla is an ''immortal, electricity-shooting vampire''. But he really did legitimately think that that [[ForScience his death ray would result in world peace]]. He even had his Nobel speech prepared. All of them gained immortality of one sort or another by [[ProfessorGuineaPig injecting themselves]] with vampire blood.
** Furthermore, James Watson, who in real life discovered DNA, is in ''Series/{{Sanctuary}}'' a few decades older, a member of the same group of metahumans as UsefulNotes/JackTheRipper and UsefulNotes/NikolaTesla, and was the real-life inspiration for Sherlock Holmes (having insisted on having his name shifted to the sidekick).
** And if Helen Magnus is to be believed, more famous people than not were secretly "abnormals". For example, UsefulNotes/WilliamHowardTaft had such a brief presidency because he had difficulty staying in human form, and asks what normal human would want the job in the first place, implying that this applies to multiple presidents.
** Apparently several members of the [[{{Ghostapo}} Nazi high command]] didn't breathe air.

** In ''Loki'' season 2, it is revealed that a character we knew was an alternate universe version of a historical person all along. [[spoiler:Specifically, TVA worker Casey is a variant of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/June_1962_Alcatraz_escape_attempt#Frank_Morris Frank Morris]], real-life escapee from Alcatraz]].

* ''Series/{{Blackadder}}'' begins with the claim that the historical reports of UsefulNotes/RichardIII are a near-total fabrication. Indeed, the first series presupposes that there was a decade-long interregnum between the death of Richard III and the accession of Henry VII Tudor, one that saw the reign of Richard IV, (who in actual history, was one of the child "Princes in the Tower," presumably but never proven to have been murdered on the orders of Richard III) before a bungled murder plot by [[spoiler:Baldrick and Lord Percy of Northumbria against a group of ne'er-do-wells bend on killing the Royal Family]] kills the entire Plantagenet line, leaving the way open for Henry to come in and rewrite history as if he had won at Bosworth Field in 1485.

* In the ''Series/{{Shadowhunters}}'' episode "Raising Hell",Isabelle claims that Music/DavidGuetta is a vampire.

** In "[[Recap/TheOuterLimits1995S5E11Ripper Ripper]]", it is revealed that UsefulNotes/JackTheRipper is a malevolent EnergyBeing who possesses people's bodies. It is stranded on Earth. Every time that it vacates one of its hosts, they are killed and their bodies are mutilated. The creature then takes possession of the nearest available body. While the creature is in control of their bodies, the hosts tend to cough up green bile, which allows Dr. Jack York to identify them.

** In season three, Alice meets the real Santa Claus
*** “Call me Nick”
* The ''Series/MastersOfHorror'' episode "The Washingtonians" (and the Creator/BentleyLittle short story from which it was adapted) spins a tale of how George Washington was secretly a prolific cannibal, and the only people who knew this were part of a cult of cannibals in Revolutionary War-era clothes and wigs. Also, Creator/BenjaminFranklin apparently never existed and is based on the accomplishments of several lesser individuals.
* In ''Series/{{Moon Knight|2022}}'', the last avatar of the goddess Ammit before she was imprisoned by the other gods was UsefulNotes/AlexanderTheGreat.
* In ''Series/{{Moonlight}}'' Mick finds out that the reason that during French Revolution the guillotine was used to execute people was that vampires were the targets. Many of the ruling elite including the family of his wife/sire Coraline were vampires. They had a "cure" that temporarily hid the effects of being a vampire. Instead of turning to ash their skin would blister and burn like a human.

** In "Ripper", it is revealed that UsefulNotes/JackTheRipper is a malevolent EnergyBeing who possesses people's bodies. It is stranded on Earth. Every time that it vacates one of its hosts, they are killed and their bodies are mutilated. The creature then takes possession of the nearest available body. While the creature is in control of their bodies, the hosts tend to cough up green bile, which allows Dr. Jack York to identify them.
** In "Alien Shop", it is implied that UsefulNotes/{{Nostradamus}} received visions of the future due to an item given to him by the alien shopkeeper.

** In the episode "Comes the Inquisitor", the Vorlons send a human named Sebastian to act as their Inquisitor. He acts, sounds, and dresses like a late 19th century upper-class Englishman, and claims he was taken by the Vorlons to do their bidding and is kept in suspended animation when he is not needed. He explains at the end that he thought he was chosen for a special destiny, but was wrong. And history was not kind:

** In the later episode "A Late Delivery from Avalon", a man claiming to be Myth/KingArthur shows up on the station. The crew don't believe any of this though, and [[ShownTheirWork with good reason]]: When one of the crew suggests that it might be another case of the Vorlons preserving a historical figure, another points out that the actual King Arthur [[YeOldeButcheredeEnglishe would not speak anything even close to modern English]]. They soon find out a traumatic experience in the very beginning of the Minbari War simply [[NapoleonDelusion caused the man to escape reality]].
** A more literal case is that of [[spoiler: Jeffrey Sinclair, shifted backward a thousand years in time and physically transformed into the Minbari religious figure (and hero of the previous war against the Shadows) Valen]].

* One ''Series/{{Smallville}}'' episode had an immortal being (clearly based on Comicbook/VandalSavage, but not by that name) trying to collect Kryptonite-infected organs to grant his true love immortality. (It sort of makes sense in context). Chloe says "I didn't come here to get carved up by some Jack the Ripper wannabe!" He smiles and says, "I was UsefulNotes/JackTheRipper..."
* ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'':
** "Requiem for Methuselah" reveals that Creator/LeonardoDaVinci, Music/JohannesBrahms, and many other historical artists were [[JuliusBeethovenDaVinci actually the same person]], a human gifted with immortality.
** Also, in "Wolf in the Fold", UsefulNotes/JackTheRipper is revealed to have been an alien.

** In "The Muse", there's a non-corporeal alien seductress who psionically inspires humanoids and feeds off the neural energy produced by their creativity, a process generally fatal to the inspiree. She claims to have inspired the Earth poets Catullus and Creator/JohnKeats, as well as [[FamousFamousFictional some future artists]].
** In "Little Green Men", we find out that an alien ship actually ''did'' crash at Roswell in 1947. It was Quark's shuttle.
** PlayedWith in the episode "In the Cards" when [[ItMakesSenseInContext Jake Sisko tells Weyoun that Willy Mays is a time traveler]].
* ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'': "The 37s" reveals that Amelia Earhart was among the victims of a massive AlienAbduction plot. This is perhaps the most well-researched part of the story.

* ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'': Samuel Colt made a gun that could kill anything.
** [[spoiler:Which also unlocks the gates of Hell. Which are located in the middle of a giant devil's trap made of churches linked by private railroads. Which Colt owned.]]
** The episode "Crossroad Blues" strongly implies that Music/RobertJohnson, Music/WolfgangAmadeusMozart, Creator/VincentVanGogh and other famous people that displayed great talent and died young had sold their soul to the Devil.
** The season 6 finale states that H.P. Lovecraft's writings were inspired by regular glimpses he got of the things lurking in Purgatory, and that he was eventually killed by one of those things.
** And the seventh season episode "Time After Time" reveals that Elliot Ness was a hunter.
** As revealed in Season 9, Creator/LFrankBaum was a [[AncientTradition Man of Letters]], who based the Oz books on the adventures his daughter Dorothy (herself a hunter) had in Oz.
* One ''Series/{{The Tomorrow People|1973}}'' serial revealed that UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler was, in fact, an alien warlord. And had been secretly frozen at the end of the war. And used hypnotic mind-control powers to make people think his ideas about racial purity were a good idea. Seriously.

* ''Series/{{Warehouse 13}}'': Thomas Edison invented vehicles that run off the users' body heat. Philo Farnsworth invented a two-way video-audio communicator. UsefulNotes/NikolaTesla, UsefulNotes/ThomasEdison's "nemesis", created an electric stun gun/[[Film/MenInBlack Neuralyzer]]. Lucrezia Borgia owned a MindControl comb.

* ''Series/TheXFiles''
** "The Unnatural" is about a gifted Negro baseball player in 1947 who turns out to be an alien Grey. The person telling AgentMulder this story suggests that all the great baseball players were aliens, which is too crazy an idea even for Mulder.
** The player is strongly suggested to be Josh Gibson, one of the greatest Negro Leagues players of all time. Not only was Gibson a prolific home run hitter with the same first name as the player in this episode, he also spent most of his career playing for the Homestead Grays (the team in the episode was the [[{{Pun}} Roswell Grays]]). Furthermore, early in the episode, Mulder was running through the names of some baseball Hall of Famers, asking his informant whether they were aliens. When Mulder asks, "Gibson?" the informant responds with "Bob or Kirk?", omitting the (arguably) much more accomplished Josh.
** A Creator/HarryTurtledove short story reverses this, with an ordinary human baseball player who's a knuckleball thrower. A visiting alien is convinced by his throwing that he has telekinesis.

* ''Series/TheTenthKingdom'': While locked in the dungeon of Wendall's castle, Virgina and Tony come across a carved message from [[Creator/TheBrothersGrimm Wilhelm Grimm]] from 1805, explaining how the legendary figures of the Nine Kingdoms became fairy tales in their world.

** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS31E6TheVampiresOfVenice "The Vampires of Venice"]]: Eleven is momentarily worried about running into UsefulNotes/GiacomoCasanova, to whom he owes a chicken, until he realizes he is 140 years too early. Even funnier when you realise [[Creator/DavidTennant the previous Doctor's actor]] also played Series/{{Casanova}}.

** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS38E4NikolaTeslasNightOfTerror "Nikola Tesla's Night of Terror"]]: Nikola Tesla is hunted by the aliens whose signal he intercepted, who want to use his genius to repair their ship, and has to team up with the Doctor [[EnemyMine and Thomas Edison]] to defeat them.
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS38E8TheHauntingOfVillaDiodati "The Haunting of Villa Diodati"]] implies that Mary Shelley was inspired to write ''Literature/{{Frankenstein}}'' after an encounter with the Lone Cyberman, which was after the Cybermen's compendium of information that had ended up in the head of Percy Shelley.

** "Requiem for Methuselah" reveals that Creator/LeonardoDaVinci, Creator/JohannesBrahms, and many other historical artists were [[JuliusBeethovenDaVinci actually the same person]], a human gifted with immortality.

* In ''Series/ForeverKnight'', UsefulNotes/RasputinTheMadMonk is a vampire, which explains his [[RasputinianDeath legendary inability to die]].

* George in ''Series/MyHero'' mentions that Einstein and Mozart were human-Ultron hybrids. Creator/LeonardoDaVinci is a full Ultronian. As Arnie puts it: "He was designing helicopters and tanks in the 15th century. Does that sound like normal human behaviour?"

* In ''Series/MoonKnight'', the last avatar of the goddess Ammit before she was imprisoned by the other gods was UsefulNotes/AlexanderTheGreat.

* One ''Series/{{Smallville}}'' episode had an immortal being trying to collect Kryptonite-infected organs to grant his true love immortality. (It sort of makes sense in context). Chloe says "I didn't come here to get carved up by some Jack the Ripper wannabe!" He smiles and says, "I was UsefulNotes/JackTheRipper..."
** Sounds like Vandal Savage.

* In ''Series/ShoeboxZoo'', medieval scholar Michael Scot is reimagined as an immortal alchemist/wizard who created a magic spellbook that has dark powers, transformed his students into toys, and created a prophecy to find a [[TheChosenOne Chosen One]] to find the book when it goes missing. He also is implied to have connections to historical figures like Stradivarius and Arthur Conan Doyle.

** [[Recap/DoctorWho2010CSAChristmasCarol "A Christmas Carol"]]: The Doctor accidentally gets engaged to Marilyn Monroe.

** Clara becomes [[Recap/DoctorWhoS35E1TheMagiciansApprentice good friends]] with Jane Austen and [[Recap/DoctorWhoS35E10FaceTheRaven makes comments]] implying the friendship [[LesYay is also a bit more physical]].

** To celebrate the 15th anniversay of "Rose", Russell T Davies released a short story "implying" that [[spoiler: Boris Johnson]] died during the events of the episode, only for the last surviving bit of the Nestene Consciousness to hijack his corpse and plot revenge on humanity.

* ''Series/TheTenthKingdom'': While locked in the dungeon of Wendall's castle, Virgina and Tony come across a carved from [[Creator/TheBrothersGrimm Wilhelm Grimm]], explaining how the legendary figures of the Nine Kingdoms became fairy tales in their world.

* The pilot of NBC's ''Series/{{Dracula}}'' casually reveals that UsefulNotes/JackTheRipper was a myth created by [[AncientConspiracy the Order of the Dragon]] to hide a vampiric killing spree (they mutilated the victims to hide that they'd been fed on, and wrote the letters).