In 1966, when Star Trek first graced our TV screens, the writers of the space drama set hundreds of years in the future were free to construct a historical timeline that led to intergalactic travel and the United Federation of Planets that spawned Starfleet. They had no clue that the franchise would last into the 21st century. After all, TV itself wasn't much of a thing a mere 20 years earlier. So they explained away, and when Star Trek returned in the 1980s and beyond, they stuck to the historical canon established by the original series, just filling in more details. And now we have eclipsed part of that constructed history already, making it into a fictional "alternative history."
In the Star Trek universe, 2026 was the year that World War III began. This 45-year war led to a loss of 30% of the human population, and the extinction of 600,000 plant and animal species. Yes, it was a nuclear war that wiped out many of earth's major cities. But it didn't just spring up suddenly. Before World War III, there was the Eugenics War and the Second American Civil War. Check out the details of Star Trek's World War III at Memory Alpha plus some more details on the year 2026 at the not-totally-canonical Memory Beta.
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