by Bryn Donovan
Want even more inspiration? Check out the plots for historical plays in the section on Shakespeare and other Elizabethan literature, and take a look at the historical setting prompts.
In 1492, two Jewish families in the kingdoms of Castile and Aragon in Spain must decide whether to convert to Catholicism or emigrate to another country following Isabella and Ferdinand’s Alhambra Decree.
A man designing the gardens for a large estate falls in love with his client’s daughter in Edwardian England.
In 874, Ingólfr Arnarson leaves Norway with his wife and stepbrother to escape a blood feud. He builds a house in Iceland—one of the first people to ever do so—and names the area Reykjavík.
In ancient Rome, a father intends to execute his son—which is completely legal for him to do at that time.
In ancient Rome, a father intends to sell his children into slavery to pay off some debts—also completely legal.
A woman establishes a hotel in the richest city in the world in 1880—Melbourne, Australia, which is in the middle of a gold rush.
During the Italian Renaissance, an actress in a commedia dell’arte troupe writes a play that becomes a sensation.
An English knight going off to fight in a Crusade soon concludes the whole endeavor is stupid.
In medieval Japan, the wife of a samurai—a trained warrior herself—leads her servants in defending her home from a Mongol raid.
In Victorian England, an aristocratic married woman is suspected of being the model for a controversial painting.
An ancient Greek athlete from a poor farming family will be granted a huge pension from the city of Athens if he triumphs in early Olympic games.
In 1766, Šćepan Mali becomes the ruler of Montenegro by pretending to be the Russian tsar Peter III.
In 1810, Archduchess Marie Louise of Austria travels to France to become Napoleon Bonaparte’s second wife. At the French border, she’s forced to remove all her Austrian clothes, take a bath, and get dressed in new French clothes, all according to tradition. Then she takes part in a truly lavish wedding.
In the sixteenth century, a European boy becomes an apprentice on a ship bound for the New World.
A free man who chose to become a Roman gladiator wants out, and he needs to raise the money (the lanista) to pay the head of the gladiators in order to regain his freedom.
A textile factory worker and occasional skydiver is recruited by the Soviet government to become the first woman in space in June 1963.
In the 1850s, white settlers build homesteads on the land originally promised by the U.S. government to the Osage nation.
A perfectly sane Victorian woman is locked away in an asylum by a husband who wants to divorce her and marry someone else.
Impoverished after the death of her parents, a young woman in the early 20th century travels from New York to Oklahoma to be a teacher in a sod schoolhouse.
A woman from the highest ranks of society falls in love with a coachman in Regency-era England.
A gentleman is about to face a challenger in a duel, but doesn’t want to kill him now that he’s learned more about the guy’s tragic history.
Wu Zhao, an emperor’s concubine in early eighth-century China, becomes the ruling empress.
A man pretending to spy for the Nazis during World War II leads them further and further astray while getting more and more money from them and feeding valuable intelligence to the Allies.
In ancient Egypt, beautiful fragrances are prized, used for funeral rites, other religious rituals, and for aphrodisiacs. A woman becomes privy to secrets and scandals when she becomes the official perfume-maker to a royal court.
Large numbers of emus are ravaging wheat crops in 1930s Australia. The Minister of Defence deploys troops to shoot them in “The Emu War,” but the birds prove wily and the effort is pretty much a failure.
Between December 27, 1813 and January 3, 1814, a dense fog covers London, disrupting travel and commerce.
A prince is kidnapped by pirates, makes friends with them, and convinces them to demand a higher ransom from his father, whom he dislikes.
A medieval teenage girl, pressured by her parents to marry a middle-aged man, runs away.
A Victorian female crime syndicate blackmails the gentry and steals from department stores and from wealthy homes, where they get employment as maids.
Because few women of childbearing age live in Seattle, Washington in 1864, a man named Asa Mercer recruits almost a hundred young women from the East Coast to move to Seattle. They become known as the Mercer Girls.
An entertainer weathers the danger and the drudgery of a USO tour during World War II.
Gui Zizi, a general in China’s Tang Dynasty, is a Nestorian Christian who quashes the An Lushan Rebellion.
In 16th century Germany, a man helps a woman suspected of witchcraft escape.
A priestess in ancient Mesopotamia secretly gets lessons in reading and writing, although people at the time generally believe women aren’t smart enough to do either.
After Marie Antoinette is executed, her eight-year-old son is taken to prison. A sympathetic guard helps him escape to the country. (Note: in reality, young Louis XVII died of tuberculosis after terrible abuse and neglect, and he was secretly buried in a mass grave.)
Jesse Stahl, an African-American cowboy, becomes famous for his daring rodeo riding.
A few poor families live in caves near Wick, Scotland in the early 20th century.
A crew member on the HMS Beagle survives the stress and strain involved with Charles Darwin’s research trips.
A merchant’s shared journey with another traveler on the Silk Road convinces him to convert to a different religion.
At the 1937 World’s Fair in Paris, the German Pavilion and the Soviet Pavilion stand directly across from one another, and Pablo Picasso unveils his painting Guernica, depicting the Nazi bombing of the Basque town during the Spanish Civil War. Tensions are high.
In the 1650s, Peter Stuyvesant, the authoritarian director-general of the New Netherland colony, butts heads with Adriaen van der Donck, a curious and idealistic lawyer.
A worker helping to construct the Brooklyn Bridge reconciles with an estranged family member.
In the Regency era, a tailor who makes garments with secret pockets for a spy falls in love with him.
Septimius Severus, an African-born governor, becomes a Roman emperor and defeats a rival’s forces in battle.
In 1744, the world views the Great Comet with six tails.
A man looks into buying a suitable house on behalf of his brother, who is returning home from the war.
Murasaki Shikibu navigates court life in early 11th-century Japan as a lady-in-waiting while writing the world’s first novel, a colossal work called The Tale of Genji.
A nurse from the Caribbean tends to wounded British troops in the Crimean War.
A Pony Express rider is captured by Pauite warriors.
When Alexander the Great invades India, the Macedonian army defeats the Agalassoi. Twenty thousand Agalassoi, despairing, set their own town on fire and cast themselves into the flames. One Agalassoi man or woman runs away instead.
In Regency England, a marquis whose late father gambled away most of the family fortune courts an American heiress.
A slave in a household of a Confederate general conveys military information to Union troops.
An aeronaut is hired by Union troops to spy on Confederate troops from his hot-air balloon.
In the early 800s, monks in an Irish monastery arm themselves and prepare for an imminent Viking raid.
A rich German-American family faces discrimination and hostility following the sinking of The Lusitania in 1915.
When Visigoths sack Rome, a family flees to their villa in the country.
In the 1880s, a Chinese man who had been working on a sugar plantation in Cuba opens a shop in the Barrio Chino, the Chinatown of Havana.
In a Texas town in the late nineteenth century, a judge’s courthouse doubles as the local saloon.
The Trưng sisters, Trưng Trắc and Trưng Nhị, rule Vietnam for three years after leading a successful rebellion against the Chinese in 40 AD.
A dozen tornadoes rip through the Midwest in March 1925, including the Tri-State Tornado that moves through Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana, killing 695 people.
In 1893, suffragists in New Zealand see victory as the country becomes the first in the world to allow women to vote.
A sea captain named Edward Arthur Wilson begins having visions, starts referring to himself as Brother XII, and starts a cult in Canada in the 1920s.
To avoid being sentenced to be a galley slave, a young man disguises himself as a lady-in-waiting in the court of Louis the Sun King in Versailles.
The daughter of a wealthy cacao plantation owner of Spanish descent is pressured by her family to end her childhood friendship with a mestiza—a girl of mixed Spanish and Native American heritage.
In the early 1960s, four American writers live in a run-down hotel in a foreign country.
A Victorian widow falls in love with her late husband’s nephew.
The actress Dolores del Río stars in both Mexican and American films while becoming romantically involved with several actors and filmmakers in the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s.
In medieval times, a man is shipwrecked in another country and given shelter by a lord there. He adapts to his new circumstances and becomes a knight in this new realm.
In the midst of the 1916 Uprising, gunfire around St. Stephen’s Green in Dublin ceases every day so the park keeper can feed the ducks.
At the height of Victorian England’s fern-collecting craze, a young woman changes her destiny by becoming one of the most successful gatherers of rare ferns in the wild.
An Englishman turns his back on England, joining King Robert the Bruce’s forces in Scotland and volunteering for a dangerous mission to prove his loyalty.
Beginning in 1807, Ching Shih (Madame Cheng) takes over her deceased husband’s pirate network, at one point controlling over three hundred junks and terrorizing both villagers and the crews of other ships.
A doctor in the Renaissance period, well ahead of his peers in research and knowledge, solves a murder case.
A Victorian gentleman learns that his wife has a scandalous past that may be publicly revealed.
In Kansas City during the Great Depression, 19-year-old Mary Lou Williams is the pianist, composer, and arranger for the jazz band Clouds of Joy.
In 1934 in Kansas City, the Democratic party machine commits widespread voter fraud and violence to win a municipal election.
A pirate who’s done many, many people favors over the years has to call them in when he gets arrested and faces trial.
A couple escapes a disastrous volcanic eruption in Santa Maria, Guatemala, in 1902.
A nurse in the 1950s grows attached to a mysterious patient.
In Germany in the 1500s, the Fugger family owns a huge financial company and exerts influence over many political leaders, including King Henry VIII in England.
A woman of British and Afro-Caribbean descent inherits her late father’s fortune and finds her way in Edwardian English society.
A casino owner avenges his brother in 1920s Miami.
Two men and one woman bring together the five Native American nations in the southern Great Lakes region to form the Iroquois Confederacy.
In England in the Middle Ages, a young nun in a convent is courted by a knight who wants to marry her in order to form an alliance with her noble family.
A Japanese soldier marries a Korean woman in 1940s Korea to help protect her from imprisonment after she becomes suspected as a dissident.
On July 17, 1955, Disneyland is dedicated in an “International Press Review” event plagued by a scorching temperature, non-operating water fountains, still-soft asphalt, and various other logistical issues.
A man enslaved by French colonists in Haiti takes part in the Revolution.
A woman who escaped the Great Famine in 1845 Ireland and found work as a housemaid in the United States tries to find out what happened to her sister.
In 18th-century India, a man from a lower caste raises his family’s social status by political means.
A retired sea captain becomes a lighthouse keeper, but his wife and daughters object to living in such a remote place.
Witold Pilecki, a Polish cavalry officer, founds a Nazi resistance group in WWII and gets himself sent to Auschwitz on purpose in order to gather information about it, escaping two and a half years later.
In 1681, King Charles II persuades Puritan leaders in the colony of Massachusetts to lift the ban on Christmas, although many of them still consider it corrupt and refer to it as “Foolstide.”
Buffalo Calf Road Woman, a Northern Cheyenne warrior, rescues her wounded brother from the field during the Battle of the Rosebud. Later that year, she fights alongside her husband at the Battle of the Little Bighorn, knocking Custer off his horse.
In the 1200s, local residents volunteer to help build Notre Dame Cathedral, though it won’t be finished in their lifetime or their children’s lifetimes.
A tattoo artist operates an underground parlor in the 1960s in New York City, where tattooing has just been made illegal.
A woman in the Victorian era pretends to be the lady a soldier has corresponded with through letters for the past two years.
In medieval times, two brothers both claim the right to inherit their late father’s manor.
Ancient Egyptians make a successful sea voyage to the Americas. (Note: most historians do not believe this happened, but a few people point to evidence that suggests it.)
An entrepreneur in New York makes a fortune during the Great Depression.
The Stelmuze oak in Lithuania is the oldest tree in Europe: it’s at least 1500 and perhaps 2000 years old. According to lore, pagans worshipped the Baltic god of thunder (Perkūnas) there.
After a battle, a commander winds up with an inconvenient prisoner.
Jewish women working in New York’s shirtwaist factories go on a massive strike in 1909 and, a few months later, are granted many of their demands.
In the 1960s, a beloved rock star associated with peace and love is verbally and physically abusive to his wife and children.
In World War I, an African-American infantry unit—the “Harlem Hellfighters”—fights side by side with French troops and sees more active combat than any other American unit.
A pregnant widow marries a man who needs to name an heir before going off to war.
The man in charge of taking care of the lions, bears, and leopards who fight gladiators at the Roman Coliseum turns the animals against a cruel emperor.
A Frenchwoman marries a British colonel in order to get information for Napoleon’s army.
A teenager on the streets in Victorian London pickpockets a dead man and makes an invaluable discovery.
A Victorian girl in London has packed to go on a grand tour of continental Europe with her family, but through a series of miscommunications, they accidentally leave her behind.
A group of misfits recruited for a cattle drive tangles with a band of horse thieves in the American West.
A governess subverts her employer’s heartless plans for his children.
In 1754 India, the regent ruler of the Maratha Malwa kingdom dies. His mother, Ahilyabai—with the support of the Holkar army, which she leads herself, riding an elephant—becomes queen of the region.
A Roman noblewoman gets motion sickness from being carried around on a litter.
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bsp; In 1736, a woman named Mrs. Ganderoon, along with a force of one hundred and twenty other needlewomen, embroiders the bridal gown and other court dresses for Augusta of Saxe-Gotha for her wedding to Frederick, Prince of Wales.
As a publicity stunt in 1866, a Texas train company crashes two trains into each other. Unfortunately, flying debris kills two spectators and seriously injures six others.
Two men who were once bitter rivals at an exclusive boarding school fight together in World War I.
During the U.S. Civil War, Harriet Tubman and Union Colonel James Montgomery attack plantations in South Carolina and manage to free seven hundred and twenty slaves.
A switchboard operator in the 1920s overhears a shocking conversation.
A woman born into poverty becomes a self-taught Impressionist painter and lives a surprisingly independent life in early 20th-century Paris.
In 1876, a yellow fever epidemic sweeps through Savannah, Georgia, and the dead are buried in the town in mass graves.
A British heiress serves as an ambulance driver in World War I.
A Havana cigar factory in the 1800s hires a local schoolteacher to read aloud to the workers in order to stave off their boredom.
In the 1940s in Singapore’s Chinatown, Sago Lane becomes the “Street of Death.” Because it’s bad luck to die in your own home, immigrants with no nearby relatives who believe the end is near stay at the “death houses” to await the end. The parlors at the homes are ready for memorial services, and nearby shops sell coffins, incense, and other necessary items for funerals.
A Chinese alchemist, trying to make a potion to bestow immortality, accidentally creates gunpowder.
Annie Horniman, a British actress in the Victorian era, genuinely believes that she can astrally project herself to faraway places. She’s even convinced that she’s traveled to Saturn and has conversed with the people who live there.