Factual error: During their transatlantic boat trip, on their way to Athens, the American athletes are having fun naming various foods from back home that they already miss. One of them claims he misses chocolate chip cookies. Oops. That particular cookie didn't exist until Ruth Wakefield invented it in 1930.
Factual error: Rita says that George was a gunner in the RAF during the war. The photograph of him in uniform in his and Connie's house shows him wearing a (double wing) pilot's brevet instead of the single wing of an air gunner.
Factual error: The Sergeant-Major of the artillery section Corporal Bins and his men are briefly attached to has two of his medal ribbons round the wrong way. He has up the Victory and British War Medal ribbons, when they should be worn BWM and then VM. A mistake an experienced senior NCO would not make.
Factual error: The weapons for this film, save for the American Krag-Jorgensen rifles, British Lee-Enfield MLE rifles, and German Mauser Gewehr 98 rifles, are completely wrong. The Russians, who had Mosin-Nagants, are portrayed with Mausers. The French are for the most part correctly poratrayed with Lebel Mle. 1886/93 rifles, but a few have Berthier rifles that weren't used until 1907. The Austro-Hungarians are portrayed with a mixture of Mausers and Berthiers when they would have had Mannlicher M88/90's or perhaps Mannlicher M95's. The Japanese are equipped with Mausers and would in reality have had Muratas. The Italians have a mix of Berthiers and Mausers, but would've used Vetterli-Vitali rifles. The Chinese Imperial troops and Boxers both have Gewehr 98 Mausers. Although they did indeed have Mausers, they had the far earlier Gewehr 71's and Gewehr 71/84's.
Factual error: The attack on the OPEC meeting in Vienna takes place on December 21. Yet, when Carlos' team exits the tram, the trees are full with green summer leaves and the sun shines as it would on a high summer day.
Factual error: The plane used in the film to take Juliet back to London towards the end of the film is a replica of a Dakota C-47. She is painted with black and white "invasion stripes" on both the upper and lower surfaces of the wings - approved in May these were only widely put into use for D-Day in June 1944. After one month the upper surface stripes were ordered removed, and by the end of 1944 they were ordered completely removed. By 1946 when the film is set they would have been long gone from any serving aircraft still flying.
Factual error: While flying across the U.S. before the Atlantic attempt Stewart lands and exits the plane. While doing a quick inspection of the airframe he approaches the engine and puts his hand on one of the radial engines cylinders which would have still been several hundred degrees, so should have resulted in a serious burn.
Factual error: One of the warriors tells a trainee they move like a sloth, more than once. Sloths are only found in the "new world", not native to Africa.
Factual error: In this scene several sailors attack Alice Paul and tear down the demonstrator's banners. The older sailor's petty officer rank specialty insignia featuring three lightning bolts, Radioman, was not created until 1921, four years after this incident. (01:30:35)
Factual error: The system devised to get the height right was, in the film, said to have been thought of by the 617 Sqn crews following a visit to the theater. In reality it was devised by the 'boffins' at Farnborough.
Suggested correction: See many previously posted 'mistakes' of this type and the standard correction: this is not a documentary and never pretended to be. It is a war drama and many facts were changed to fit the action.
Those correction are often made in fallacy. Dramas based on historical accounts have liberty to change small or inconsequential things, like adding a person that may have never existed, or change a relationship for dramatic purposes. Despite not being a documentary, unless it's a fantasy film, changes in historical facts are mistakes (for example, a drama can't have the Eiffel Tower in London just because it's not a documentary).
Suggested correction: This was the version given in Brickhill's book. The real story wasn't published till many years after the film was made.
Factual error: Following their re-equipping at the South Essex depot, Sharpe marches his battalion across the bridge towards London. However, every non-commissioned officer is aware that troops don't march across a bridge. They break step to avoid setting up harmonics that would collapse the structure.
Factual error: The bikes used in film are Enfield Classics, which were introduced in 2010 and not available in 1960 or 1947. The engines are visible in 2 scenes (when young Milka meets his sister for first time in Delhi and when Milka rides to see his old home when in Pakistan) and are AVL engines, not the cast iron engines in 1950s bikes.
Factual error: When the Doctor visits William Turner in Chelsea, he claims to be leaving by train from Charing Cross. That station did not open until 1864 - 13 years after the death of Turner.
Factual error: When Cagney surprises Ward Bond in a saloon, they run out the back and across a rail freight yard. They jump onto boxcars of a slow moving train. Bond jumps up between two older wooden-bodied boxcars, A and B. Cagney, in pursuit, jumps up between cars B and C. In the wide shots, car C is seen to be a steel-bodied boxcar built at the earliest in the late 1930's. Events in the movie show the time-line to be set in September, 1893.
Factual error: Early in the film, as the train pulls into the station, you can see 2 European Traffic Control Systems. A signalling system that was only installed in 2010.
Factual error: One of the cars featured at the end of the film is an Alvis TA21, which only entered production in 1950, several years after the Nuremberg Trials.
Factual error: In various shots throughout the film "Sky TV" style satellite dishes can be seen on houses - the film is set in 1972 many years before satellite TV existed.
Factual error: Roland enters the train to go to the war, in 1914, with "Spanish Flu", but that was the (wrong) name given to the 1918 flu pandemic, which lasted from spring 1918 through spring or early summer 1919.
Factual error: Since the movie was set in the 60s, David Senak couldn't have gotten in trouble for shooting the man running away. In the 60s, the police could legally shoot any criminal running away. This didn't change until Tennessee v. Garner in 1985.
Factual error: At the end of the film a character is walking through a studio lot in 1952. Through the trees behind him can be seen a section of a poster advertising Jackass Forever (2022).