Best history movie deliberate mistakes of all time

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World Trade Center picture

Deliberate mistake: At or near the beginning there is a scene with autumn leaves. The colours and amount are just not consistent with the date of September 11. They seem to be about 3 or 4 weeks ahead of schedule.

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We Were Soldiers picture

Deliberate mistake: During the last assault against the hill, a duo of helicopters is mowing down the Vietnamese soldiers with miniguns. In one shot, you can see one chopper coming up behind a tree, all guns blazing. However, the tree, which is in the way of the helicopters right side minigun, remains totally untouched, although, looking at the carnage the guns do to the Vietnamese soldiers, it should have been reduced to toothpicks. (01:51:00)

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Pocahontas picture

Deliberate mistake: Many times Pocahontas's hair blows in the wind, even though nothing else moves in the shot. From the way her hair moves, the wind should be strong enough wind to move something else, but not even John Smith's hair moves.

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Black Hawk Down picture

Deliberate mistake: When the list of the KIA during the raid is showing, the name of Matt Rierson is up there but he died 3 days later from a mortar attack on the base. (02:11:50)

Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.

Suggested correction: Although he was killed 2 days later, he is still considered a casualty of the battle in official records so it's not a mistake.

Steve Kozak

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Quo Vadis picture

Deliberate mistake: Wooden crosses are shown in several scenes, hanging on a wall. Crosses did not come into use as a Christian symbol until 450 A.D. (about 400 years after the film is set).

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Schindler's List picture

Deliberate mistake: The movie shows events between 1939 and 1945 but the children look the same at the beginning and the end, they don't grow up. Pay attention to Danka Dresner, Adam Levy and Olek Rosner.

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JFK (1991)

JFK picture

Deliberate mistake: The eyewitness testimony that placed Oswald in the lunchroom at the book despository didn't come to light until the House Select Committee on Assassination in 1978, many years after the Shaw trial.

David Mercier

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Seabiscuit picture

Deliberate mistake: In the final race of the film, Seabiscuit performs a flying lead change at the gallop while crossing the finish line, in the famous shot taken underneath his neck. Horses normally only switch their leads around turns while racing; it's something done to relieve pressure on the leading foot. From taking the shot over and over again, the horse playing Seabiscuit was probably tired out and a little tender and began to perform lead changes in other places in an attempt to be more comfortable.

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The Spirit of St. Louis picture

Deliberate mistake: The mechanic points out the overhead installation of the indicator compass. He says "Want to see where I put the compass? It's the best place I could find for it." The installation site was planned, not improvised. In order to read the compass in a mirror the compass was specially ordered from the manufacturer with the numbers reversed so it could only be read in a mirror. This mistake was intentional in order to claim a mirror was needed from a bit character.

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Kursk picture

Deliberate mistake: For dramatic purposes, the crew is shown surviving for several days. The investigators found evidence that the fire in the compartment occurred around six hours after the Kursk sank, and that the survivors had died before the first rescue attempt took place. They wouldn't have been saved even if the multinational team had been called in sooner.

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