What If Timeline

An interactive timeline that doesn't just show you history — it shows you the invisible consequences of history, and lets you ask the unthinkable: what if it never happened?

Click any event on the timeline and watch its ripple bloom outward as a living network of social, economic, technological, and cultural consequences. Flip the counterfactual switch and watch the downstream world fade away.

Run it

npm install
npm run dev

Then open http://localhost:5173.

• Click an event node to explode its ripple.
• Click any ripple node to read its narrative.
• Flip "What if it never happened?" to collapse downstream history.
• Esc returns to the timeline.

Stack

• Vite + React 18 + TypeScript
• React Flow (graph canvas, pan/zoom, animated edges)
• Framer Motion (transitions, spring physics)
• Tailwind CSS (dark space theme)
• Zustand (global state for selection + counterfactuals)

Events included

Gutenberg Press (1440), Industrial Revolution (1760), The Telephone (1876), World War II (1939), ARPANET (1969).

All narratives are pre-authored in src/data/events.ts — zero API calls, zero network dependency, demo-safe.