Time travel in fiction
Time travel is a common theme in fiction and has been depicted in a variety of media, such as literature, television and advertisements.
History
H. G. Wells' 1895 story The Time Machine popularized the concept of time travel and introduced the concept of travelling through time by mechanical means.
Prototypes of time travel stories include:
the ancient Hindu folk tale of the King Revaita, who travels to a different world to meet the creator Brahma and is shocked to learn that many ages have passed when he returns to Earth;
the 8th century Japanese folk tale Urashima Tarō, which features a fisherman who visits a world under the sea and stays there for three days, only to find after returning to his village that three hundred years have passed and his family is long dead;
Washington Irving's 1819 story Rip Van Winkle, which tells of a man who goes to sleep on a mountain for a night and wakes up 20 years in the future: he has been completely forgotten, his wife is dead and his daughter is grown up;
