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could you please help me to understand the meaning of "precedent to this story"? "There are many historical precedents to this story"

Does it mean that story is written on the basis of historical events? Thank you!

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  • Can you reveal (paste) more context?
    – Jan
    Commented Feb 26, 2020 at 13:06
  • There's not much useful context :( I have a story, fiction novel. The sentence "There are many historical precedents to this story" is taken from the discussion questions. But actually I am confused about the meaning of "to" in this sentence. Does it mean "events, which are in the story" or " story is based on some historical events"?
    – Kristina Lukosevice
    Commented Feb 26, 2020 at 14:12

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Google's dictionary definition of precedent: an earlier event or action that is regarded as an example or guide to be considered in subsequent similar circumstances.

For example, we could say "Joe Bloggs was disqualified from the cycling event for using banned drugs, following the precedent of Lance Armstrong's case", or "dropping nuclear bombs would be a huge step, with Hiroshima and Nagasaki the only historical precedents".

In this case it implies the story is not directly based on actual historical events, but there are examples in history of similar stories.

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