The backdrop for a story I'm currently working on is a wizarding world (as in most, but not all magical communities around the globe) that stood up for themselves instead of deciding to hide from Muggles. The International Statute of Secrecy of 1692 never went into effect. The Ministry of Magic is formed later than in canon.

Some divergences I'm considering:

1. Magical Britain takes Scotland as part of a treaty to end a minor war with the Muggles and erect an improved version of Hadrian's Wall.

2. Not exactly sure what to do with the colonization of America. Would the colonies be given more freedom because of conflicts at home or be controlled even closer? Perhaps an even stronger hatred of witchcraft which sparks a crusade to vanquish magical folk from the Americas?

3. Technology will be a bit different. Electricity will still be prominent, but certain other areas will be influenced: warfare and transportation mostly. While not a crossover, there will be some borrowing of the magic system from The Bartimaeus Trilogy. Both Muggles and Wizards can learn summoning, though only those born with magic can use the HP magic.

4. Maybe something with Napoleon? Not really sure what could happen here, just a random thought about having a French Empire that spans most of Europe. It might have something to do with Fleur and her family. I was thinking this could vastly change the results of the World Wars (if they even happened in this timeline)?

5. Dumbledore, Grindelwald, and Riddle have different histories.

That's what I've got so far. The focus of the story is Harry and a handful of other characters from canon, but I really want to flesh out a basic history so it has some cohesion. I'm shit at regular history, never mind alternate history with magic. I guess I'm looking for advice on how to do alternate history or where to start doing research for it. Perhaps the names of some other historical events that might be important to know?

 

The first step to doing (good) alternate history is to stop being "shit" at actual history. IF you don't know what actually happened there's no way you can make interesting guesses and reasonable extrapolations from the changes you plan to introduce. If you don't want to half-ass this, you're going to need to do a lot of research.

You also need to very seriously consider the repercussions of allowing magic to be known to the wider world. It would have an enormous impact on the pace of human progress, I think.

 

I'm puzzled why someone who admits to being pants at history would wish to write alternative history. Usually, this genre is one that attracts those obsessed with brainstorming the outcomes of "what if" questions: What if Reagan had fired that nuclear warning shot and the Russians had responded in kind? What if the French cavalry had managed to outflank and run down down the Welsh longbowmen at Agincourt, thus turning the tide of the Hundred Years War? What if Germany had developed Dreadnoughts first, thus achieving decisive naval superiority prior to WWI? What if syphilis were as deadly for the Europeans as smallpox was to the Native Americans?

The game is essentially to pose a pivotal "What if...?" followed by logical extrapolation to the time of one's story. As T3t indicated, you have to possess a good sense of how history works and what the major forces at play (geopolitical, social, economic, military, religious) are/were in order to do the latter convincingly.

With centuries of time, history could have progressed far differently from what it did. Movements come and gone may never start, supplanted by other movements instead. Common notions we all take for granted today, e.g., universal human rights, could well have evolved into something unrecognizable, particularly with differences between magical and non-magical people being far more profound than the differences among races. Great personalities like Napoleon and Frederick the Great may well have never risen in the altered power landscape. Magical effects on logistics and transportation alone would have led to profound changes to economic and military development. The United States may have never formed. Communism may not have been ideated. The Enlightenment may have been supplanted by something else entirely. How the Reformation and organized religion developed may have been completely different once it's widely appreciated that men have the power to effect miracles (which used to be divine providence).

If you're going back that far in time and making that significant a change, I think you need to think big.

 

Some food for thought:

While the expansion of the British empire is likely to continue, America as it exists is far from guaranteed. There's nothing to say that Britain would win out against Spain or France during colonization of the west. Even if they did, there's no particular reason for a revolution - the circumstances that caused it to arise almost certainly wouldn't exist in a world with near-instantaneous transportation/communication across oceans. The British empire might collapse, but for entirely different reasons.

You'll also need to make a list of significant scientific advancements of the last few centuries and see which ones might fail to exist if magic supplanted their purpose - for example, while Astronomy might initially undergo major advances, it could also later regress. The study of physics will be wildly different. Etc.

 

This is precisely the reason most modern fantasy authors - if they're attempting to paint a world remotely like ours - go with "most people don't know about magic" even though it's sometimes ridiculously hand-wavy and unsatisfying. Even in the Amelia Blake series (not that I'm saying it's fantastic, just well-known for a modern fantasty setting), Hamilton's "mortals know about magic now!" is quite recent.

What you're talking about is a whole 'nother bag of cats.

Without a thorough knowledge of how actual history works and the kind of imagination that makes someone exceptional at world-building - along with the time and dedication to planning out several of these "world-changing" events and how they've affected subsequent events both in simplistic overall fashion and the minor details - The United States was never able to gain its independence, what about Canada or India? How extensive is the British Empire that rules the world with an iron fist, holding these superpowers in a modern day? Were the "Axis" powers the "good guys" of WWI/WWII - fighting against the overbearing superpower of BigBrother!Britain?

Not to discourage you, I think this kind of "Big Changes Result in Bigger Changes" thing can make for an incredible setting - hai enembee and the Skitterleap! - but it requires the type of person that, in my experience, appreciates/loves the study of history.


Regarding T3t's post above, I believe that with magic playing a large role in eliminating disease and poverty (in the traditional sense of casting replication charms on food being an easy solution, and Portkeys/Apparation handling distribution) that there would be an "Industrial Revolution" of sorts - or an expansion of the Renaissance, if you want to call it that - where a ridiculously significant portion of people, be they magical or not, would no longer have to rely on farming to support their families (just as technological advancements later allowed in real life).

A natural, though certainly not a foregone, conclusion, is to suspect that these people would be free to pursue pursuits of a scholarly nature. Our own understanding of the sciences might be changed due to reliance on magic, but also might be advanced by ~100 years or so in certain ways. There would also be a horde of secretaries/clerks/people-doing-bitchwork for every single wizard or witch born.

 

Medicine is another big one. No need to understand cell or germ theory if you can just magic away the malady.

 

Of course, being in medical research myself I see medicine as THE biggie, but of course something this far back, you could feasibly have EVERYTHING be the biggie. Which is what is really frustrating about even thinking about this kind of story - I'm fairly certain no one is knowledgeable enough in enough areas to understand the ridiculous impacts it would continue to have.

So either take that as a ticket for authorial hand-waving to royally change things and have wizards in space fueled by self-replicating anti-matter, or just go with that other (boring) time theory, where you can make all the perturbations you want and history still happens the same way.

 

Well, the task of creating a completely new history since the end of XVII century till now, is titanic - and quite frankly - almost impossible. As stated above, you need to posses immense knowledge of history of not only the world history, but the history of every European, Asian or Middle Eastern country that played and/or could play some role. Do you have the time and determination to read all about Habsburg Empire (there are historians that build their entire career on this subject), France, Great Britain, Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Russian Empire, Prussia, the Holy Roman Empire, Ottoman Empire, China, India and so forth? If not, then drop this idea, and just create your own fantasy setting.

But, for the sake of mental exercise, lets run with your idea. You state that the International Statue of Secrecy of 1692 did not went into effect. What do you mean by it? Was it written down but not ratified/accepted? Was the entire idea shot down? Basically, why was it not signed? After you answer that basic question, you can start on thinking about the repercussions of wizards acting and meddling in worlds history.

 

I won't be so quick to say creating your own fantasy setting is an easy way out. Without much knowledge of history, it is not easy for an author to develop a complex and interesting world.

Many of the successful fantasy novels were heavily influenced by history.

 

I agree, but that doesn't change the fact, that creating believable alternate history, is an even more challenging task, than just creating fantasy world. With the former you can mix almost anything and handwave things that are impossible from historical point of view with the universal "it's magic". With alternate history, you have to think about every tiny detail, because if you don't, and you forget about it, someone will point your mistake.

 

The problem I'm wondering is if certain characters would even be born in such an alternate timeline. If you take into account the butterfly effect(which would play a key role in this case) certain characters might not be even born, or perhaps some characters who are dead in canon might actually be alive. For example, Ariana Dumbledore. In a alternate universe fanfic where magic is well known, then the accident with the muggle boys may not have happened, her magic would not have gone haywire, and she could even be alive, therefore radically altering the life of her brother Albus. Another example is that certain muggleborns might not even exist because of the potential of them being kills by muggles who fear their existence, and their might be an even large division between muggleborns and purebloods because the purebloods fear their influence will tamper with wizarding culture.

Still It's a great idea and I'd really love to see this done.

 

You could go an easier route and have Grindelwald reveal magic during WW2.