History Main / ArtisticLicenseHistory

** No, [[UsefulNotes/DianaPrincessOfWales Princess Diana]] did not own a guinea pig as a child, nor did she bring it to school where it won a "pet contest".[[note]]"Pet contests" weren't even a thing in the school she went to.[[note]]

* ''ComicBook/DisneyDucksComicUniverse'' had this one story where the Ducks travelled back in time to the year 1000. On the site of Duckburg (an ''American'' city, and located on the Pacific Coast at that!), ''they found a medieval European town''. Fortunately, when the story was published in the United States,[[note]]It was actually written by European authors and was first printed in Scandinavian countries, which only makes it a ''little'' bit more understandable.[[/note]] the translator changed it so that they only travelled back to the 1700s, though of course this leaves all the characters they meet with anachronistic clothes and names.

** "ComicBook/TheSuperSteedOfSteel" considers that "Biron" and "Maldor" were traditional names in the pre-Christian Greece. In that vein, Maldor's status as a male wizard contradicts the Greek myths, in which only two mortals (Circe and Medea) were known to practice magic, and neither of them were male.

* ''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.

** ''ComicBook/{{Supergirl}}'' storyline "ComicBook/TheSuperSteedOfSteel" considers that "Biron" and "Maldor" were traditional names in the pre-Christian Greece. In that vein, Maldor's status as a male wizard contradicts the Greek myths, in which only two mortals (Circe and Medea) were known to practice magic, and neither of them were male.

In most cases however, historians and artists don't really have the same job. A historian's job is to relate the facts, and update them as new information comes to light. An artist's job is to ''reflect'' on history, showing why certain individuals and events were important ''and remain important'' decades and centuries later. Even when history is WrittenByTheWinners and censorship dominates cultures (as it did for a long time in human history), artists tend to be drawn to particular events and figures more than others. Whether its the FolkHero, the FounderOfTheKingdom, the iconic RebelLeader, certain people and events are interesting because they are more relatable to people than others. This often leads to a sense of distortion, where thanks to constant references in history, the impact of some historical figures looms larger than [[BrieferThanTheyThink the facts would allow]] and in some cases, greatly exaggerates the given person or event's relative importance.

* Hojo Tokiyuki, the protagonist of ''Manga/TheElusiveSamurai'', was a real figure who escaped Kamakura after his family's deaths and was sheltered by Suwa Yorishige while he planned his return to power. Given the exaggerated nature of the characters, and Yorishige's power of seeing into the future, it's clear the manga will not try too much for historical accuracy.

** No, [[UsefulNotes/DianaPrincessOfWales Princess Diana]] did not own a guinea pig as a child, nor did she bring it to school where it won a "pet contest".[[note]]"Pet contests" weren't even a thing in the school she went to[[note]].

** No, Princess Diana did not own a guinea pig as a child, nor did she bring it to school where it won a "pet contest".[[note]]"Pet contests" weren't even a thing in the school she went to[[note]].

* Anime & Manga examples:
* ArtisticLicenseHistory/IsabelleOfParis
* ArtisticLicenseHistory/TheRoseOfVersailles

* ArtisticLicenseHistory/FanWorks

* ''Anime/LucyMayOfTheSouthernRainbow'': The anime 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 telld 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.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Mulan}}'': The Huns never invaded China. Historically, the villains in the movie would more properly be the Xiongnu.

* 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''.

* ''WesternAnimation/MonstersInc'': After George Sanderson gets subjected thrice to "code 2319" indignities, his assistant tells him that he'll next be sent on an easy scare job in, "Nice... quiet.. Nepal." In reality, during the film's production, Nepal had been embroiled in civil war since 1996. And four months before the film's November 2001 release, the King and Queen and eight other members of the royal family were killed in a massacre in the royal palace.

** Diminutives are not being used correctly (or not used at all). For example, Vlad is a diminutive of Vladislav, not Vladimir (although it had started to be used that way ''after'' the fall of the USSR). The diminutive of Anastasia is
"Nastya", not Anya. And the proper way to address someone twice your age is using their [[UsefulNotes/RussianNamingConvention name and patronymic]] (Vladimir Nikolayevich). As for Dimitry, whom she cares for, she should be calling him "Mitya (this diminutive has since been replaced by Dima in the 20th century and only among the commoners).

** Additionally, Rasputin's curse (see below) states that the Romanovs would die within a fortnight of the curse being set. In reality, the Romanovs were arrested in February 1917 at the start of the February Revolution, and were executed a year afterwards.

** Diminutives are not being used correctly (or not used at all). For example, Vlad is a diminutive of Vladislav, not Vladimir (although it had started to be used that way ''after'' the fall of the USSR). The diminutive of Anastasia is Nastya, not Anya. And the proper way to address someone twice your age is using their [[UsefulNotes/RussianNamingConvention name and patronymic]] (Vladimir Nikolayevich). As for Dimitry, whom she cares for, she should be calling him Mitya (this diminutive has since been replaced by Dima in the 20th century and only among the commoners).

* {{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 ''Music/SongsOfSurrender'' (an album consisting entirely of new versions of the band's past songs), the lyric was changed to "In the evening".

* {{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 P.M. Bono has acknowledged the error and regularly changes the lyric to "Early evening" in live performances.

** "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."

* ''Anime/IsabelleOfParis'':
** When the Prussian army is seen invading France, their military uniforms are dark green. Prussian military uniforms in the 1870s were actually dark blue. Oddly enough, the anime got the French military uniforms down correctly.
** The Prussian flag is [[https://ibb.co/3k4xZ4h depicted]] as blue and red. In real life, it looked like [[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c1/Flag_of_the_Kingdom_of_Prussia_%281803-1892%29.svg this]]
** The French flag is depicted as the modern-day tricolore flag, but since the anime is set in 1870, it should have been [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_French_flags#/media/File:Imperial_Standard_of_Napol%C3%A9on_III.svg this]]. To make it absurd, the series does acknowledge Napoleon III on more than one occassion and directly names the Battle of Sedan as the primarily conflict that kickstarted the story's events.

** When the Prussian army is seen invading France, their military uniforms are dark green. Prussian military uniforms in the 1870s were actually dark blue.

* ''Anime/IsabelleOfParis'': When the Prussian army is seen invading France, their military uniforms are dark green. Prussian military uniforms in the 1870s were actually dark blue.

** The game has, since its inception, described a ''longsword'' as a one-handed sword. Only as of 3rd edition has the weapon been able to be wielded in one or two hands for extra damage, which was codified in the 'versatile' property in 5th edition, but even this is historically inaccurate. In reality, the term "long sword" was explicitly devised to describe swords too long to be used in one hand (what the game typically classifies as "greatswords"). The term was meant to differentiate from swords meant to be wielded in one hand, which were typically just called "swords," or in some cases "arming swords." Then there's the term ''short sword'', which was also not a designation used with any regularity during the time swords were common weapons, though some editions of the game acknowledge this and say that it's a generic catch-all for any thrusting sword longer than a dagger but shorter than an arming sword.

* ''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 BladeOnAStick 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.

Not so. Large chunks of history are well-documented, with many living traces in contemporary life -- roads paved on pathways carved by ancient civilizations, languages and slang that evolve from a particular regional starting point, architecture from various eras, fashions plucked from various times, materials used for tools and production, etc.

But all of this is secondary to telling a good story. In most cases, historical works focus on a particular event taken out of context, revolving around [[TheMainCharactersDoEverything a set group of individuals]] and depict the events with the pictorial and narrative structure as per the fashions of the year of its exhibition. Real history is filled with a vast array of characters with plenty of HeroOfAnotherStory. In addition, many writers commit what's called the "historian's mistake", which is the idea that historical characters acted and made their decisions with [[OmniscientMoralityLicense full knowledge of the future]] -- including the repercussions their actions would cause (like for example portraying Churchill as saying his DarkestHour RousingSpeech with knowledge that Nazi Germany was going to be defeated in 4 years).[[note]]This is also known in psychology as [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindsight_bias Hindsight Bias]]. Although some historical individuals made predictions that came true, this is not the same thing as ''knowing'' what would happen. For instance, a character in 1919 could plausibly predict that the Treaty of Versailles would cause hardship, anger and instability in Germany (indeed, Marshal Foch himself said at the time it was "not a peace treaty, just an armistice for twenty years", if only because he understood it to be too lenient), but it would be stretching it for him to confidently assert that the instability would specifically result in the rise of a [[UsefulNotes/NaziGermany ruthless racial supremacist paramilitary regime]] in Germany that would be hellbent for revenge starting [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarII the biggest war in human history]] and along the way, responsible for the systematic murder of millions of Jews, Roma, and others.[[/note]] Likewise, works of art are not so cheap to create. It costs something in time and money to properly research, find and create the material needed to portray a given period with some degree of accuracy. There are also the limits of the medium to contend with. To play a famous painter believably, casting another famous painter is usually not considered a smart rule for casting. The best of actors will struggle to believably render genius convincingly. There are limits to the illusion cast by a work of art in portraying a historical reality, even in the best scenario. This also applies to writers who would struggle to render the thoughts and dialogues of the distant past in a manner that [[RuleOfPerception is convincing to the reader]], that gives a believable impression of a past where society and values were different from the present, but not so different as to be unrelatable. In cases where the given period has very few records available, most of it ''has'' to be fictionalized anyway. Likewise, where history does lean on records, there is still room for interpretation and ambiguity, so in these cases historians and artists share common ground.