Alternate history (fiction)

Alternate history is like when you and your friend were playing with your toys and you said, "What if the toy dinosaur didn't go extinct and people lived with them?" That is called alternate history.

It's when someone imagines how things could have been different in the past if one or more things happened differently. For example, what if the American colonies didn't fight for independence and became a part of Great Britain? Or what if JFK was never assassinated and became a great president?

People who write stories or books about alternate history imagine these "what if" scenarios and create a new version of the past. It's like making up your own story with a different plot. This is called fiction because it's not real, but it's fun to imagine what could have happened if things were different.