diff --git a/backend/__init__.py b/backend/__init__.py
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e69de29
diff --git a/backend/database.py b/backend/database.py
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..967e99a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/backend/database.py
@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+from sqlalchemy import create_engine
+from sqlalchemy.orm import sessionmaker
+from sqlalchemy.ext.declarative import declarative_base
+
+SQLALCHEMY_DATABASE_URL = 'sqlite:///./forum.db'
+
+engine = create_engine(SQLALCHEMY_DATABASE_URL, connect_args={'check_same_thread': False})
+
+SessionLocal = sessionmaker(autocommit=False, autoflush=False, bind=engine)
+
+Base = declarative_base()
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/backend/forum.db b/backend/forum.db
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d7baae5
Binary files /dev/null and b/backend/forum.db differ
diff --git a/backend/forum.py b/backend/forum.py
index 672b686..a526450 100644
--- a/backend/forum.py
+++ b/backend/forum.py
@@ -1,8 +1,12 @@
 from fastapi import FastAPI
+import models
+from database import engine
 from pydantic import BaseModel
 
 app = FastAPI()
 
+models.Base.metadata.create_all(bind=engine)
+
 
 class Post:
     """Post is a single forum post or reply"""
diff --git a/backend/models.py b/backend/models.py
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..9f1f275
--- /dev/null
+++ b/backend/models.py
@@ -0,0 +1,21 @@
+from database import Base
+from sqlalchemy import Column, Integer, String, Boolean, ForeignKey
+
+
+class Posts(Base):
+    __tablename__ = 'posts'
+
+    id = Column(Integer, primary_key=True)
+    thread_id = Column(Integer, ForeignKey("threads.id"))
+    author = Column(String)
+    title = Column(String)
+    content = Column(String)
+
+
+class Threads(Base):
+    __tablename__ = 'threads'
+
+    id = Column(Integer, primary_key=True)
+    author = Column(String)
+    title = Column(String)
+    content = Column(String)
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/backend/requirements.txt b/backend/requirements.txt
index 364e2ee..09b688d 100644
--- a/backend/requirements.txt
+++ b/backend/requirements.txt
@@ -1,2 +1,3 @@
 fastapi
 uvicorn[standard]
+sqlalchemy