Mei Lin’s World is a word that is somewhat similar to Real Life, but with some major differences.
Mei Lin’s World never fully managed to leave slavery behind them, moving it into a limited realm of Voluntary Indentured Servitude, where the Indentured would still enjoy some rights and protection by the states.
The return of Comet Halley in 1910 also triggered a ‘Return of Magic’, which resulted in the transformation of 33% of the worlds population into fantasy races such as elves, dwarfs or orcs, later called ‘humanid races’. A further 33% were transformed into various anthropomorphic (furry) races, from wolves, over avians to finally dinosaurs and even dragons, later called ‘anthroid races’. Due to some magical effect, there is sexual inter-compatibility between the single ‘races’, allowing pregnancies to occur with a 50/50 chance of the child being of the ‘race’ of one of its parents.
Magic was quickly discovered to be or practical use in many ways and usable by just about anyone, if they applied themselves. During the ‘Quantum Revolution’ in European Physics in the 1920s, Magic was irrevokably linked to Quantum Mechanics. Nils Bohr’s (who got turned into an elf in 1910) work on the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics then managed to describe magic with ‘observation of macroscopic quantum effects by a concious observer who has expectations’.
This also lead to the development of artifial intelligence in the 1970s, since automation of certain magical effect for technological use would nessecitate a concious observer to facilitate.
On the world stage, history would to some of the big things mirror the Real World. The World Wars still happened, though World War Two was not fueled by Nazi idiology, but the massive resentment of Germany over the Treaty of Versailles. The transformation of so many humans into humanids and anthroids lead to the quick and powerful death of any ‘race theory’ in a classic racist way, as everyone could have been afflicted, still racism would continue to exist.
The ‘Return of Magic’ also lead to massive sociological changes as it lead to the full liberation of women and the destigmatization of anything sexual due to a higher general sexual appetite of everyone involved, as well as the introduction of functional hermaphrodites into the humanity, though only amoung the ‘anthroid races’.