History Main / ArtisticLicenseHistory

** PlayedForLaughs in the video for [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4vj_WB5w_k "The Unkillable Soldier"]], a deliberate AnachronismStew that consciously leans on RuleOfFunny because songwriter Joakim Brodén thought Sir Adrian Carton de Wiart's biography read like a comic book. Among other things, Sir Adrian (played by their ''WebVideo/SabatonHistory'' collaborator Indy Neidell) didn't sign up for the British Army when UsefulNotes/WorldWarI started, but was already serving in Somalia and deliberately refused to have an [[EyeScream injury to his eye]] treated so that he would be invalided back to Britain and be able to join the fun in Europe. The video portrays the eye getting shot out by a German soldier (played by drummer Hannes Van Dahl); it was actually shrapnel from a near miss by a Somali. The director of the music video reportedly [[ComicallyMissingThePoint didn't get the joke]]: he wanted the band members, playing German soldiers, to wear Stahlhelms for historical accuracy, and the band replied that very little else that was going on was historically accurate and [[HelmetsAreHardlyHeroic went helmetless]].

%% This example list hass been alphabetized. Please add new examples in correct alphabetical order by title.

* Creator/HirohikoAraki makes an author's note early on in ''Manga/JojosBizarreAdventureSteelBallRun'' that the value of dollars discussed in the story are roughly equivalent to the modern dollars rather than 1890s dollars in order to convey the amounts to a modern reader more easily.

** ''WesternAnimation/PocahontasIIJourneyToANewWorld'' is so much LighterAndSofter than the real story of how Pocahontas got to England as to be virtually unrecognizable. Rather than meet John Rolfe and go to England to negotiate peace terms with UsefulNotes/JamesVIAndI, Pocahontas was first kidnapped and held for ransom, then forcibly converted to Christianity and [[MeaningfulRename baptized Rebecca]]. She married John Rolfe in 1614 and bore him a son, and died at about age 20 in Kent without ever returning to America as depicted in the film.

* ''Anime/ADogOfFlanders1975'': Dub-only example. The German version of the theme song has the lyric "You know Rembrandt and Rubens, and they all painted in Flanders". But Rembrandt was a Dutch painter who worked in Holland.

* Emanuel Leutze's famous painting "[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_Crossing_the_Delaware_%281851_paintings%29 Washington Crossing the Delaware]]" has George Washington and his soldiers crowded into small jolly boats, without a horse or cannon in sight. In actuality they used Durham boats, which were double-ended cargo boats upward of 40 feet long. They're also flying the Stars and Stripes, which didn't exist until the next year; at the time, the most common (albeit unofficial) revolutionary flag actually had a British Union Jack in the canton.

* ''Manga/HonooNoAlpenRose'': The anime mentions that Lundi's father, Dr. Courtot, went "to Africa" (apparently AfricaIsACountry) during the 1920s to work as a doctor and treat impoverished patients. It's also mentioned that before he arrived, Africa had no doctors, which is blatantly untrue - yes, Africa as a whole wasn't that economically developed during the 20s, but it certainly had basic necessities like hospitals (most 3rd world countries do).

* Invoked and PlayedForLaughs by [[Music/TheB52s The B-52's]] in "Mesopotamia". The band consulted an encyclopedia when writing the song just to make sure they got everything ''wrong''. The lyrics also do some LampshadeHanging - the narrator claims that he "ain't no student of ancient culture", and "should read a book".

** Mulan is portrayed as (stereotypically) Han Chinese. The oldest versions of the story state she was from the northern tribes--semi-nomadic people more closely related to the invaders than to Han Chinese--for whom it would have been hardly unusual for a woman to know how to ride and fight (Central and East Asian steppe tribes typically had the women guard the camps when the men were with their herds or at war).

** ''WesternAnimation/PocahontasIIJourneyToANewWorld'' is so much LighterAndSofter than the real story of how Pocahontas got to England as to be virtually unrecognizable. Rather than meet John Rolfe and go to England to negotiate peace terms with UsefulNotes/JamesVIAndI, Pocahontas was first kidnapped and held for ransom, then forcibly converted to Christianity and [[MeaningfulRename baptized Rebecca]]. She married John Rolfe in 1614 and bore him a son, and died at about age 20 in Kent.

* Creator/DonBluth's ''WesternAnimation/{{Anastasia}}'' has it on several levels. The film is loosely based on the story of a woman whom we now know falsely claimed to have been Grand Duchess Anastasia Romanova after escaping the [[UsefulNotes/RomanovsAndRevolutions 1917 Bolshevik Revolution]]. Bluth cannot be blamed for not knowing for certain the woman wasn't really Anastasia, [[DatedHistory as her remains were not conclusively identified until 2008]] using DNA testing[[note]]Interestingly, via Prince Philip, consort to UsefulNotes/ElizabethII of the UK and Anastasia's maternal first cousin, once removed, courtesy of UsefulNotes/QueenVictoria's use of AltarDiplomacy.[[/note]]; however, he can be blamed for other inaccuracies:

** The video for [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kiHwYVg2-64 "Midway"]] misidentifies an archival photograph showing ''Hiryu'' dodging a trail of splashes as being from a land-based fighter attack. In fact that photograph depicts a failed bombing run by a B-17.

[[folder:Web Animation]]
* In ''WebAnimation/InventionPioneersOfNote'', the episode on Alexander Graham Bell asserts, among other things, that he fought in World War 2. While the error is definitely intentional, it's not as clear if this is supposed to be a InUniverseFactoidFailure, BlatantLies, or something else.
* ''WebAnimation/OverSimplified'':
** Despite the gags at the beginning of first French Revolution episode, King Louis XVI wasn't always an AdiposeRex. Based on historical records, he was quite tall for his time, standing at an impressive 6'4'', and was actually pretty muscular. In fact, he was the outdoorsy type, with hunting being one of his more passionate hobbies. It wasn't until his late thirties, after slacking off on exercising for years, that he became fat, and even then, he was more on the chubby side than obese.
** The Civil War episodes include several gags portraying Ulysses S. Grant as a hard drinker, while actual historical evidence points strongly towards Grant being actually a [[CantHoldHisLiquor severe lightweight]] whose occasional indulgences were pounced upon by envious rivals, especially [[TheStarscream John McClernand]], using the partisan press, although the video does point out his enemies exploiting it.
** The Civil War episodes also play slightly on the old myth that the Confederacy had better generals than the Union. This is only possible if one (like the video does) focuses mainly on Robert E. Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia, because elsewhere the Confederate generals were generally so inferior as to make Lee seem SurroundedByIdiots. In the end, the North found four men who could all competently lead major armies to victory: the aforementioned Grant, William T. Sherman, Phil Sheridan, and George Thomas. The South really only ever had Lee, and even that is debated since many historians now criticize Lee's overall strategy as too wasteful of Confederate manpower.[[note]]Confederate generals like Stonewall Jackson, Jubal Early, and Nathan Bedford Forrest were certainly gifted but worked on a smaller scale and displayed [[ThePeterPrinciple crucial command flaws in semi-independent command]]. Other historians and Civil War buffs -- especially critics of Lee -- will point to James Longstreet as the South's best general (which hit pop culture with the novel ''Literature/TheKillerAngels'' and it's film adaptation ''Film/{{Gettysburg}}''), but this disregards Longstreet's own serious flaws such as his EpicFail in his one big shot as an independent commander at [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Fort_Sanders Knoxville]].[[/note]]
[[/folder]]

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* ''Anime/PrimitiveBoyRyu'' depicts dinosaurs and cavemen living in the same era. [[https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/did-people-and-dinosaurs-live-same-time This isn't true]].
* ''Anime/LucyMayOfTheSouthernRainbow'': The first episode is stated to take place in 1837. In episode 33, Lucy-May mentions it's been three years since she came to Australia, meaning the year currently is 1840. In the next episode, while Arthur is working at a quarry, he hears an explosion, and his colleague tells him it is the sound of dynamite. But nitroglycerin, the raw material for dynamite, was [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitroglycerin#History discovered]] in 1847.
* ''Manga/TheRoseOfVersailles'': [[ArtisticLicenseHistory/TheRoseOfVersailles Has its own page.]]

* ''ComicBook/ChickTracts''. Where to begin? Dinosaurs lived into the Middle Ages, Allah is a moon god and the existence of the Inquisition is apparently almost completely unknown.

* ''ComicBook/LadyDeath'': ''Medieval Lady Death'' takes place in the [[UsefulNotes/KievanRus Novgorod Republic]] and shows Teutonic Knights serving as the local authority under Pope Paul V. Novgorod was an [[UsefulNotes/OrthodoxChristianity Eastern Orthodox]] state and as such as [[ChristianityIsCatholic a Catholic order like the Teutonic Knights would have absolutely no jurisdiction over it]]. To top it off, Honorius III was the correct Pope during that time, while Paul V would only be born two centuries afterwards.

* ''ComicBook/TreasureChest'': ''This Godless Communism'' gets a lot of things wrong in regards to the history of communism, Creator/KarlMarx and the Soviet Union.
* ''ComicBook/{{Crimson}}'': Templar Grandmaster D'Orense proudly claims to be a direct descendant of Bernard of Clairvaux, the patron saint of their order. However, Clairvaux was a celibate monk who is very unlikely to have fathered any children (it was stated that he jumped into cold water to resist any lustful temptations). If he had sired any offspring, he would have broken his vows and that would have been something really shameful for the Templars to admit, much less take pride in it.
* ''ComicBook/{{Djinn}}'' takes place in the eve of World War II, but it takes a lot of liberties:
** The Ottoman Sultan is named Murati instead of Mehmed V, who was the reigning sultan in 1912, the time the comic takes place. He is also deposed by Enver Pasha before World War I even begins, whereas his real-life counterpart died a powerless figurehead less than four months before the Ottoman Empire's capitulation at the Armistice of Mudros. His brother and successor Mehmed VI would be the final imperial ruler.
** It's a plot point that Great Britain wants to prevent the Ottoman Empire from forming an alliance with Germany by securing peace with them first, only for that to come to naught due to an diplomatic scandal. In real life, it was the other way around: the Ottomans wanted to remain neutral because of the serious decline they suffered over the years such as losing the entire Balkans in the early 20th Century just prior to [=WW1=] and they attempted to secure an alliance with Great Britain, but they had no interest.
* ''ComicBook/GoldenLad'' takes a lot of liberties with Pre-Colombian history; for instance, the pendant that gives Golden Lad his powers is in the shape of the European heart symbol, rather than any remotely Aztec symbol.
* The chilean comic ''ComicBook/{{Mampato}}'' has many, many examples to mention them all, just for presenting one, in Mampato and Ogu in the court of King Arthur not only presents dubiously historical figures such as Merlin or King Arthur, but also shows England of the fifth century with a medieval type culture that only existed centuries later.
* ''ComicBook/{{Democracy}}'':
** Harmodius was actually a teen when [[spoiler:him and Aristogeiton murdered Hipparchus, but they changed his age, so his relationship with Aristogeiton]] wouldn't be {{Squick}}y.
** While the myth with Hero and Leander did exist, it's believed that it was written in the 1st century A.C. (and the story takes place 600 years earlier). Still, chances are that they myth might be older than we believe.
** Records state that when Hippias learnt about [[spoiler:his brother's murder, he acted rationally]]. Here, he is seen crying over his [[spoiler:death]].
* ''ComicBook/{{Supergirl}}'':
** In one scene of ''ComicBook/TheUntoldStoryOfArgoCity'', ComicBook/{{Supergirl}} and her parents are seen lifting an Egyptian temple. Said temple is drawn as a pyramid, even though Egyptian worship places do not have resemblance whatsoever to pyramids.
** ''ComicBook/SupergirlsThreeSuperGirlfriends'': Supergirl calls King Richard I of England "the Lion-Hearted" instead of his real nickanme, "the Lionheart".
** "ComicBook/TheSuperSteedOfSteel" considers that "Biron" and "Maldor" were traditional names in the pre-Christian Greece.
** ''ComicBook/TheOtherSideOfDoomsday'': When he comes around and notices he has been chained to a stone's wall, the Flash identifies it as "a medieval dungeon", even though nothing about its design suggests this. Barry's reasoning seems to be "It is murky, muddy, mossy, there are shackles on the walls... It looks awful and primitive so it ''must'' be medieval. Specifically".
* ''ComicBook/{{Superman}}'':
** In ''ComicBook/TwoForTheDeathOfOne'', Superman gets dragged to [=XIVth=] Century England. One of the villagers he meets wears a horned helmet, even though Dark Ages Vikings never wore horned helmets, let alone Middle Ages Englishmen.
** In ''Franchise/MastersOfTheUniverse'' crossover "ComicBook/FateIsTheKiller", one narration box states that Eternia looks like a simple world because "their civilization is based on a monarchy", ignoring that pleny modern states are monarchies. Another box informs that Eternia's civilization is a strange mix of feudalism and technology, even though Eternia is NOT a feudal society AT ALL. Feudalism was born when the weakness of the central governments caused masses of peasants to swear fealty to landed nobility, working their lands in exchange for protection against hostile forces, but that is not the case of Eternia: the royal family are the only and undisputed authority figures, and landowning aristocracy appears to be nonexistent. The narrator assumes that "Medieval=Feudalism, ergo technological backwardness", but feudalism is a political system which has nothing to do whatsoever with level of technological development, and it is not synonymous with Middle Ages either (starting as soon as the late Roman period and existing in some form or another as late as the early 20th century).
* In the ''WesternAnimation/MightyMouse'' pastiche of ''ComicBook/CrisisOnInfiniteEarths'', the role of the Monitor is taken by the Minotaur, explained as being the original anthropomorphic animal. In reality, the Minotaur is greatly predated by the Lion Man statue, which dates to between 35,000 and 40,000 years ago.

* In September 2009, a character in ''Tank [=McNamara=]'' was said to have researched the Vandals (the name of a college sports team) and found that they were part of Norse mythology. The Vandals have nothing to do with Norse mythology; they were a historic Germanic tribe, or perhaps Slavs, who invaded the Roman Empire. This misinterpretation comes from the old Swedish kings' style as "Suecorum, Gothorum et Vandalorum Rex" Vandalorum being the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wends Wends]] (or the Vends), not the Vandals. This is however somewhat of a Real Life example, since the "Vandalorum" was ''meant'' to be (mis)interpreted as "Vandals", which were remembered as exercising impressive military force — not unlike the impression one in the 20th century could have derived from "King of the Vikings"[[note]]which actually would have carried some historical accuracy, but probably also been highly politically incorrect before the 19th century[[/note]]. That the ''Swedes'' started using this particular title (in 1540, a good 300 years after the Wends disappeared from history) is mostly as part of a pissing contest with the king of Denmark and Norway, who similarly claimed to be the king of the Wends and {{Goth}}s.
* [[http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Wqo9IVCWV5E/SRr_T7IbTKI/AAAAAAAABgI/Vlgydog2iRs/s1600/Bizarro%2BPinata%2B11-09-08%2BWB.jpg This]] ''ComicStrip/{{Bizarro}}'' strip.

* ''WesternAnimation/TitanicTheLegendGoesOn'' proudly states on the back of the DVD that "they embarked on the real adventures on board the ''Titanic''." [[BlatantLies With talking geese, a rapping dog, and a mariachi band of mice]].
* ''WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfTheTitanic'' has a mouse who sneaked aboard the ''Titanic'' named Top Connors tells his grandchildren the "real" story of the ''Titanic'': a giant octopus named Tentacles was tricked into throwing the iceberg into the ship by a gang of sharks as part of a whaling tycoon's evil scheme, and he saved the ''Titanic'' and everyone on it.
* Creator/DonBluth's ''WesternAnimation/{{Anastasia}}'' has it on several levels:

** At the beginning (1916), the Dowager Empress narrates that the 300th anniversary of the Romanov dynasty's rule over Russia was celebrated. In RealLife, this anniversary was in 1913.

** While Rasputin actually being a sorcerer rather than a religious mystic and having a talking bat sidekick is presumably an intentional departure from history, other details about him don't match up with his historical counterpart either: Rasputin died months before the Russian Revolution at the hands of a few young aristocrats resentful of his influence over the Imperial family.[[note]] Interestingly, the first draft of the movie acknowledged this by showing his ''surviving'' this assassination thanks to his magic, and having him consider it the Tsar's fault, hence his vengefulness.[[/note]] Although he wasn't even remotely a saint by any means, he considered himself a Christian and would never deliberately indulge in any occult practices. Furthermore, he was also a monarchist who never harbored any ill will towards the Tsar nor his family (beyond generally wanting to gain power and profit off of their faith in his supposed psychic abilities).
** Anastasia's bones were identified in 2008, proving she never did make it out alive. The film cannot truly be blamed for using her survival as its premise, however, because [[DatedHistory it was made years before that discovery]].

* ''WesternAnimation/ElCidTheLegend'' is ''very loosely'' based on the life of the Spanish knight Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar and rife with inaccuracies such as the circumstances of his exile, his real-life political rival being turned into an {{romantic false lead}} for his love interest and [[HistoricalHeroUpgrade softening Rodrigo's character a great deal]]; he is very (in)famous for having murdered his own father-in-law for insulting his own father, while in the film, he inadvertently kills him in self-defense after Jimena's father tried to get rid of him for disrupting her {{arranged marriage}}. Also Rodrigo's wife Dona Jimena is pressed into the BigBad's harem, something which never even remotely happened in real life.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Mulan}}'': The Huns never invaded China. Historically, the villains in the movie would more properly be the Xiongnu (who may or may not have later become the Huns, but historians will always call them the Xiongnu in this context).

** The real Pocahontas would have been around 12 years old at the time the movie takes place, not a young woman.

* The first line of "Sink the Bismarck" is "In May of 1941, the war had just begun." UsefulNotes/WorldWarII had actually been going on for over a year and a half prior to that, and no country first started getting involved in the war in May of 1941. (Britain, for example, had been trading air strikes with Germany since the second half of 1940.)
* Creator/SteveMartin's OneHitWonder song "King Tut" uses the rhyme "''Born in Arizona'' [=/=] ''Moved to Babylonia''" which is a great rhyme, though UsefulNotes/{{Tutankhamun}} was neither born in Arizona nor ever went to Babylonia. Really, none of the statements about Tut are true, other than "[[CaptainObvious He's an Egyptian]]." Because the song is G-rated and catchy, some kids grew up singing it and [[FridgeLogic then had to think about it]]. This was {{lampshaded}} by Martin himself in a 2004 [[http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/05/opinion/the-king-and-i.html?_r=0 New York Times]] piece, humorously "setting the record straight" though also taking credit for the profound insight that Tut was Egyptian.
* Music/NeilYoung's song "Cortez the Killer" describes the Aztecs as being a peaceful people for whom "war was never known". The Aztecs are notorious for being particularly brutal, practicing HumanSacrifice on a virtually industrial scale, to the point where part of the reason Cortez was able to conquer their empire so easily was because practically every other tribe in Mexico joined him in an EnemyMine.
* PlayedForLaughs in "Purple Toupee" by Music/TheyMightBeGiants, which is about the narrator's fractured recollection of history during TheSixties.
-->''I remember the year I went to camp\\
Heard about a lady named Selma and some blacks\\
Somebody put their fingers in the president's ear\\
And it wasn't too much later they came out with Johnson's wax''
* {{Music/U2}}'s "Pride (In the Name of Love"): "Early morning, April 4/Shot rings out in the Memphis sky." UsefulNotes/MartinLutherKingJr was actually shot at 6:01 pm local time. Bono has acknowledged the error and regularly changes the lyric to "Early evening" in live performances. In the version recorded for the 2023 album ''Songs of Surrender'' (an album consisting entirely of new versions of the band's past songs), the lyric was changed to "In the evening".

* Music/{{Sabaton}}:

* In "Heroin" by Music/TheVelvetUnderground, Music/LouReed sings "I wish that I was born a thousand years ago/I wish that I'd sailed the darkened seas/on a great big clipper ship/going from this land here to that". The clipper ship was invented in the 1840s. The original lyric had him wishing he was born a hundred years ago; either he didn't think to change the ship or just didn't bother.
* Music/BillyJoel's song "The Ballad of Billy the Kid" is almost nothing ''but'' artistic license -- the only similarities between his Kid and the real one is that they were both outlaw gunfighters. Joel has publicly acknowledged this since 1975, the year after the song came out.
* Music/EltonJohn's "Indian Sunset". The Iroquois had no dealings with the Sioux, and lived in longhouses, as opposed to tipis. The word "Squaw" was not used as a term for women among them. Geronimo died in the hospital as a prisoner, and was not killed while surrendering.

* Music/RandyNewman: "In Germany Before the War" is about serial killer Peter Kurten. However, it says he killed in 1934. By then however Kurten was dead, executed for murder. He actually committed most of the murders during 1929, while his execution was in 1931. This was probably done because it rhymed with the previous verse.
* Music/JonathanCoulton:
** "Ikea" has Ikea being founded not by a modern Swede in 1943 but in "days of yore" under the god [[Myth/NorseMythology Thor]] and his Viking followers.
** "Kenesaw Mountain Landis". Well, Landis, Shoeless Joe Jackson and the Black Sox Scandal all existed, but nothing else in the song resembles reality. To start with, the opening verse says that Landis "was seventeen feet tall/He had a hundred and fifty wives."

* Played for laughs in the Music/InsaneClownPosse song "I Want My Shit", where Violent J (claiming to be immortal) raps that he crossed the enemy line during the American Civil War while carrying a MAC-10 (a gun that wouldn't enter production until 1970). Shaggy 2 Dope immediately points out the problem with this, and after a brief argument a very annoyed Violent J corrects the line to "Walked 'cross enemy lines with a... ''lantern''..."

* ''TabletopGame/WitchGirlsAdventures'' seems to be written under the premise that Vlad Dracul and Vlad Dracula are the same person, and not in a BeethovenWasAnAlienSpy or JuliusBeethovenDaVinci sense. For reference, this is the same as writing a story under the premise that George '''''H'''''. W. Bush and George W. Bush are the same person. They just seem to have not realized they were not only two different people, but father and son. A hint is that "Dracula" roughly translates to English as "Son of the Dragon", with "a" being the "Son of" part.
* ''TabletopGame/GraveRobbersFromOuterSpace''. Subverted with the Re-interpreted Historical Figure Who Probably Wasn't As Evil As All This.
* ''TabletopGame/{{FATAL}}'''s creator Byron Hall claims that the game is absolutely historically accurate -- when he's not claiming that some hideously offensive magical item was included for controversial humor. In practice, "historically accurate" in this case means that he just looked up stuff that people used to believe at one point or another, and treated it as though it's actually true.
* Swashbuckling adventure game ''TabletopGame/SeventhSea'' tries its best to justify this by being set in a world which is not explicitly Earth ("Theah"), but instead has nearly-identical geography (except for lacking the Americas), and is made entirely of {{Fantasy Counterpart Culture}}s with {{Significant Name}}s. The result is a world much like our own, circa 1560 (the Queen of "Avalon" is a clear Elizabeth I expy...) through the 1700s (... while a ShoutOut to Louis XIV is at the height of his power and a [[UsefulNotes/NapoleonBonaparte Napoleon]] expy is making an EarlyBirdCameo). Woe betide the GM who tries to use its books for anything set in the ''real'' [[TheCavalierYears Cavalier Years]].

* ''TabletopGame/{{Pathfinder}}'''s "weapon groups" mechanic divides up several broad categories of weapons for the purposes of (mainly) Fighter and Cavalier class features, including two separate groups for "spears" (stabbing weapons on sticks) and "polearms" (other kinds of bladed, long-handled weapons like halberds or pole-hammers). This distinction didn't historically exist: spears are properly a ''subset'' of polearms. Nearly all medieval and post-medieval [[OddlyShapedSword oddly-shaped spear variants]] from the halberd to the glaive could still be used to stab an enemy held at haft's length, and conversely the heads on fighting spears were often edged and could cut in addition to stabbing.

* In ''Webcomic/{{Educomix}}'', UsefulNotes/WorldWarII was fought between Ireland and the South Pole, and one of the combatants was Jesus.