Continuity: When Sadusky has Ben handcuffed across the desk from him, there is nothing on the desk directly between Sadusky and Ben except Sadusky's coffee mug, a gray thing that is about mid-way between Ben and Sadusky, and a white spiral notebook to the right of the coffee mug. Then Ben says, "Ian still ended up with the Declaration of Independence," and as the shot switches from Ben to Sadusky saying, "Because of you," we see the glasses Ben found at Independence Hall appear on the desk in front of Sadusky between the gray thing and himself. Then as Sadusky says, "Someone's got to go to prison, Ben," and Ben says, "Yeah," two short stacks of papers appear on the desk in front of Sadusky and the glasses changes position as well.

Factual error: The clock on the back of the $100 bill reads approximately 4:10 not 2:22. This is the design of both the current $100 bill and the bill used in the movie. The $100 bill will not be redesigned until 2006.

Continuity: When the guy is smashing Parkington Lane's headstone, the number, size, and location of the holes change from one shot to the next.

Continuity: When Riley is first looking at the special glasses the lengths of the stems of the glasses change from shot to shot. Sometimes they are halfway extended and sometimes they are fully extended.

Factual error: Early in the movie, Charles Carroll, identified as the last survivor of the 56 patriots who signed the Declaration of Independence, is portrayed as a Freemason. Charles Carroll of Maryland was not a member of the Fraternity.

Deliberate "mistake": When Riley writes "S,S,A,N,D" on the paper, the kid points out how odd his N's are. But when he looks over the whole message, there are two normally written N's.

Continuity: The Declaration of Independence in the clear plastic cover keeps changing colors from brown to white and back. When Ben puts it in the very first time while in the elevator, it is brown. When Ian gets the case out of the street after Abigail loses it, it is white. It is back to brown in the church.

Factual error: When Gates is talking to Ian under the Trinity Church, he says that Thomas Newton placed the lantern in the Old North Church to signal how the British were coming. However, it was the Church sexton, Robert Newman, who actually placed the lanterns. Even though Ian probably wouldn't know the difference, surely three historians (Patrick Gates, Ben Gates, and Dr. Chase) would have known the correct person in so important an event in American history. There was no reason to throw Ian off track by saying this, since he didn't even know how many lanterns were placed.

Continuity: When Riley is in the Subway to install the video feed, he places his laptop on a table. On its left side there is a little antenna. When the laptop is on the ground, the antenna is horizontal. In the next shot, the antenna is already folded out in a 45° angle.

Continuity: When Gates is arrested by the FBI you see Riley and Chase coming around the corner twice.

Continuity: Right after the scene where the FBI break into Ben's apartment, Ian is puzzling over the clue from the Charlotte. He circles the phrase "in silence" but when he holds the notepad up to his friends, only the word "silence" is circled.

Continuity: When they blow the back of the Declaration with the hairdryer, Ben writes down the numbers. When he explains to Reilly how an Ottendorf cipher works we see that there are 2 columns with 17 lines each. This leaves us with a possible 34 letters. However the riddle that they decipher from the Dogood letters have 89 letters in it. After Ben writes down the last letters Abigail switches off the dryer and we can also see that it was the end of the page so there is no way that there was more space to get more letters.

Other: When Nicolas Cage puts on the thumb cover, he lightly dabs it in that purple stuff so he can pull Abigail's thumbprint off the glass. The very next shot is a close-up of the thumb cover, which is now somehow covered in that purple stuff - even on the back of his thumb.

Factual error: Ben, Riley, and Abigail are driving into Philadelphia at sunrise to go to the Franklin Institute. They are shown driving west on the Ben Franklin Bridge. The sun is actually setting in the west behind Philadelphia, not rising.

Factual error: When Ben meets Abigail for the first time in her office, he admires her collection of Washington's campaign buttons. In fact, there is no such thing as a Washington campaign button, since presidential campaigns (as we know them today, with a candidate declaring the desire to be president and actively promoting himself or herself) did not come into existence until the mid-1800's. Washington never "ran" for president. In fact, at the time it would have been considered very un-gentlemanly and arrogant to publicly express your interest in the office. There were however buttons made to commemorate his inauguration and his presidency itself (saying "Long Live the President", etc., but nothing like those seen in the film), and these are, indeed, collector's items.

Other: When Ben is threatening to throw the flare down into all the gunpowder, knowing what would happen when the fire strikes it, there are all kinds of sparks falling from the flare down into the fire anyway. Wouldn't one of those sparks would easily have set the powder off?

Other: When Ian is breaking in to take the Declaration of Independence his team uses a plasma cutter to cut through some metal. A plasma cutter of that size (fairly small and portable, but able to cut through metal of that thickness) requires a 220v power supply and a compressed air supply. I doubt there was a 220v power plug in that area, and I didn't see them carrying around any kind of compressed air tank.

Factual error: When Dr. Chase receives the Washington campaign button from Ben Gates, she immediately picks it up with her bare fingers and rubs it with her thumb. An expert collector would *never* handle metal objects with their bare hands like this, as the acid on the fingers will corrode the metal. Cleaning the coin afterwards is also not an option, as this presents an even higher damage risk. See http://www.stujoe.com/content/view/30/34/ for more details.

Continuity: When Riley is cutting into the pipe holding the cable for the National Archives, the hole he cuts changes shape after the shot showing him examining the wires.

Factual error: When Ben and Riley are in a reading room in the Library of Congress, they have books about the architecture of buildings, as well as books about security and such. However, the particular reading room they are in contains books about Social Sciences, and to order books from a different area, it takes a really long time. They would have been in a different reading room that contained books about their subject.