For example, until the microscope was invented and Pasteur (sp?) discovered that heat kills germs, it was not known that invisible critters caused sickness. The old timers knew that excess wine caused hangovers but they also knew that no one got the common diseases from drinking it. Canned grape juice was invented in the 1800's see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Bramwell_Welch
So if Baptist Christians can be traced back to the first century, it is clear to me that they used fermented wine for many centuries because the options were alcoholic wine or no communion. That was the social contract.
After it was discovered how to preserve wine, the Baptists and Methodists changed their denominational social contract to forbid wine, the Baptists going so far as to reinterpret Scripture and history.
Not true!
If you study the confessions of faith and other writings by Baptists prior to the prohibition movement they all used wine.
Not all Baptists today use grape juice.
They may have rewrote "their" history but they certainly did not rewrite the vast majority of Baptist history on record. I have a very substantial library of Baptist History and I assure you that it is very hard to find any historical record of "grape juice" used in the Lord's Supper before the prohibition.
Such historical records are extremely scarce.
Not in Europe. Baptist still use win in Europe for communion. The Baptist seminary in Prague uses what they call Baptist wine. It is from vineyards that German Baptists were hired, a number of centuries ago, to restore in Southeastern Moravia that had been destroyed in war. Moravia is now part of the Czech Republic.