Niche Historical Inaccuracies: the Bluesky Thread

October 13, 2026

On 2026-10-12, @deargodwhaat.bsky.social asked:

Prompts a fun question: whats the most niche historical inaccuracy in a piece of work that annoys you

Not like ‘oh they were referring to the wrong king’, more ‘they had the wrong king on a banknote in one scene’

The “prompt” was a quote of @amrk.bsky.social asking why book characters get anachronistic names (Anne Hathaway playing a woman in her early 40s named Verity Crawford). Within a day the post had about 370 replies and 710 quote posts, and Bluesky’s Trending account built an “Anachronisms” feed around it.

This page collects the answers, grouped by theme. Collected 2026-10-13 from the public API: every reply, every quote post, and the trending feed, 1,383 posts in all, curated down to the substantive answers. Each entry links to its post. Heart counts are shown for the most-liked ones. These are the posters’ claims, not fact-checked; where the thread pushed back on a claim, that’s noted.

The crowd favorites

The most-liked answers across replies and quote posts.

Toys, games and pop-culture props

The single richest vein. Collectors know exactly when their toys came out.

• Stranger Things season 3 (summer 1985) has a G1 Ultra Magnus, which came out in 1986 with the movie, and wasn’t motorized. Raised by several Transformers fans at once. (@bwprowl.bsky.social, @mikediver.bsky.social, @drivaaar.bsky.social)

• Stranger Things season 1’s Millennium Falcon is a 2000s reissue. “I’m not saying I yelled at the TV.” (@kimota1977.bsky.social)

• Stranger Things again: the wrong (1991) cover of A Wizard of Earthsea, a modern Woody Woodpecker doll, an IKEA Färgrik mug a year before the first US IKEA, rollaboard luggage, and an area code that couldn’t exist in the 1980s. (@jadelennox.bsky.social, @daniexists6.bsky.social, @avramg.bsky.social, @rmd1023.bsky.social)

• Black Widow: 1995 Yelena has a modern Twilight Sparkle doll. “THEY LITERALLY HAD ANNIVERSARY TOYS RELEASED THAT YEAR THEY COULD HAVE USED.” (@pixelkitties.bsky.social, @therealjarkes.bsky.social)

• That ’70s Show: Eric’s Star Wars figures are the 1990s versions, and his Spider-Man sheets carry the 1994 Todd Klein logo. (@gonebabygone.bsky.social, @unicornosis.bsky.social)

• M*A*S*H: Radar falls asleep with an issue of The Avengers, about fifteen years early. Raised over and over. (@fadeoutpod.bsky.social, @misterjayem.bsky.social)

• IT (2017): the Lego turtle uses lime green 2x2 tiles from the 2000s and Mixel eyes from 2014. (@alanmorlock.bsky.social, @brendanpayne.bsky.social)

• Skinamarink: a Lego brick separator that didn’t exist yet took one Lego fan right out of it. (@pseudandry.bsky.social)

• 28 Years Later: a Power Ranger figure that wasn’t released until years after the outbreak. “What am I to conclude, that these were included in aid drops?” (@spinebusterkeaton.bsky.social)

• Madame Web (2003): a Nintendo DS, an English sudoku and Britney’s “Toxic,” all 2004. Also a PSP. (@ragesinggoddess.bsky.social, @ravennoises.bsky.social)

• Harry Potter: Dudley has a PlayStation several months before that was possible. (@robinwilde.me)

• The Hurt Locker (2004) references YouTube (2005) and shows Gears of War (2006). (@chasin.bsky.social)

• Halt and Catch Fire: the Doom footage has pill-icon medikits, so it was captured from a later re-release. (@rclarke.bsky.social)

• Grosse Pointe Blank: a Doom II arcade cabinet, which never existed. (@crackopenablueski.bsky.social, @restlessjack.bsky.social)

• Transformers: Rise of the Beasts: a Mario game in 1994, on a Game Boy, where beating Bowser matters. Any two are possible, not all three. (@andrusi.bsky.social)

• Righteous Gemstones: an 11-year-old brags about a Sega Saturn in 2000, when a family that rich would have had a Dreamcast. (@yotemcyoteface.bsky.social)

• Hot Tub Time Machine: they couldn’t find enough 1980s skis, so the extras hold skis from 25 years later. (@hapilax.bsky.social)

• Captain Marvel (1989 flashback): Street Fighter II: Champion Edition on a 16:9 LCD. (@posindustries.bsky.social)

• Detroit Rock City (October 1978): a Bally KISS pinball machine from mid-1979. (@wcwworldwide.com)

• Everybody Wants Some!!: the Mattel handheld baseball is labeled “Classic Baseball,” the reissue. (@djgloverepair.bsky.social)

• Coyote Ugly: Amazing Spider-Man #129 is called a $1,000 comic. It was worth about $140 near mint, and he creases it. (@mattp3000.bsky.social)

Typefaces, print and paper

• The Fraktur subthread. Under the Conspiracy answer, people explained that the “too Jewish” ban was likely a pretext: occupied countries simply couldn’t read Fraktur signage. Archivists and OCR veterans then swapped war stories about reading it, and one person built a Fraktur reading game for the thread. (@amrk.bsky.social, @cherylm56588591.bsky.social, @sashotodorov.bsky.social, @devinchaloux.com)

• Mad Men used a 1987 Compact OED in an episode set in 1963. (@benzimmer.bsky.social, @oldmetalpossum.bsky.social)

• Do the Right Thing: the real 1988 NYT heat headline was moved up to an all-caps lead. (@joshuajfriedman.com)

• Victorian characters reading front-page headlines in The Times. It ran only adverts on the front page until the 1960s. (@floatinginwaves.bsky.social)

• Fear Street (1994): an AOL chat window set in Calibri, which shipped with Office 2007. Calibri also turns up in Better Call Saul. (@dougdurando.bsky.social, @godofhammers.bsky.social)

• The Good Shepherd: a 1940s–50s document printed in Times New Roman. (@likeapen.bsky.social)

• When Calls the Heart (early 20th century): the water tower is lettered in Zapf Chancery (1979). (@notincleveland.bsky.social)

• The cut-scene maps in Raiders of the Lost Ark use a typeface about 20 years too modern, and also show borders and names (Thailand, Jordan) that didn’t exist in 1936. (@rikibeth.bsky.social, @lsaclassof2000.bsky.social, @langdongrant.bsky.social)

• Mock newspapers in general: wrong typefaces, obviously computer-set where hot type belongs. (@joescaramanga.co.uk, @kevinallman.bsky.social, @graphxgrrl.bsky.social)

• Mr. Holland’s Opus: 1960s sheet music in a font the publisher didn’t use until the late 1970s. (@wesflinn.bsky.social)

• An Aberdeen exhibition about the 1970s used a fake “historical” 70s typeface. (@franciscandlin.bsky.social)

• Good Omens: Agnes Nutter’s book looks like a cheap Victorian reprint, which shouldn’t exist. (@kubobukata.bsky.social)

• In the other direction, the Franklin miniseries got the press, printing paraphernalia and processes right. (@glennf.com)

Words and phrases

• Titanic: Billy Zane calls someone a “moron,” a word coined that same year. (@adamrutherford.bsky.social)

• O Brother, Where Art Thou? (1930s): “paradigm of hope,” a usage that dates from Kuhn in 1962. (@johnperich.com)

• “Robot” before Čapek’s R.U.R. in 1920, including a Pat Barker WWI novel. Before that the word meant a form of Habsburg corvée labor (“the desire of the peasantry to be rid of the Robot”). (@llyfrgellbabel.bsky.social, @causticcovercritic.bsky.social, @alexiterick.bsky.social)

• “Okay” before the 1840s, and “hello” before the mid-19th century, when “halloo” was something you shouted. (@debbiemoon.bsky.social, @kitwhitfield.bsky.social)

• “Teenager” in a George Washington novel. (@fangirling0nly.bsky.social)

• Being the Ricardos: Lucille Ball says “don’t gaslight me” in the 1950s. (@stevensantos.bsky.social)

• Midnight in Paris: Gertrude Stein calls the hero’s writing “science fiction,” a term that didn’t exist yet. (@nmamatas.bsky.social)

• Legends of Tomorrow: a 1950s sheriff says “serial killer.” (@greentreegoblin.bsky.social)

• Cruel Summer (Texas, 1994): “Check your privilege.” (@victorroxx.bsky.social)

• Dahmer: the news calls him a “sex offender,” a term from the late 1990s. (@crabitha.slutmo.de)

• Dopesick (around 2005): “only a trained data scientist would notice this.” (@johnbrownstan.bsky.social)

• A Dark Winds writer caught “couch surfing” in a 1972-set script before shooting. “Nah, child.” (@treystokes.bsky.social)

• “Lock, stock and barrel” in a swords-and-sorcery romance; it was a gunsmith’s qualification. The author liked the review and promised to do better. (@elfsternberg.bsky.social, @elfsternberg.bsky.social)

• “Cut to the chase” in Regency England. It comes from Hollywood. (@nocturnalkatie.bsky.social)

• “Escalate” in pre-modern settings: it’s a back-formation from “escalator.” (@terrifictadpole.bsky.social)

• Babel: an 1830s Oxford professor calls his speech a “spiel.” (@nocturnal-forager.bsky.social)

• Troy: “kangaroo court.” (@phoeberoi.bsky.social)

• Mad Men season 1: “military-industrial complex” a year before Eisenhower’s speech. (@coralinewren.bsky.social)

• French Revolution novels calling nobles “aristocrats,” which didn’t mean that yet. (@1minutetoeleven.bsky.social)

• Films that use “thou” as an object, “thee” as a subject, or treat either as formal rather than familiar. The Green Knight gets a specific mention. (@cholden.bsky.social, @sonicundergroun.bsky.social)

• The West Wing: Bartlet asks whether a teacher teaches Beowulf in the original Middle English. (It’s Old English.) The poster emailed the studio. (@friendpanda.bsky.social)

• Wicked: how do the people of Oz know about the Tartars? (@lethalityjane.bsky.social)

• Evil Dead Rise: “I have made this vinyl recording,” on what is clearly a shellac acetate, and “vinyl” is a retronym anyway. (@theoscargoff.bsky.social)

• Penny Dreadful claims the demimonde means the spirit realm. (@ouinne.bsky.social)

• A Malcolm X biopic has someone shout “call 911” before 911 existed. Back to the Future got this right: a 1955 kid asks “What’s CPR?” (@earthnova.bsky.social, @grubdipper.bsky.social)

• The ancient Greeks didn’t call themselves Greek. (@pdxsunshine.bsky.social)

• A WWII radio play said “radar” (it was RDF) and “Hertz” (cycles per second). (@antiprofessor.bsky.social)

Food, plants and animals

• The Columbian Exchange is the thread’s most common complaint: potatoes, tomatoes, maize, squash and turkey in pre-1492 Europe or Asia. Named offenders include Tolkien’s Shire, Gladiator’s market stalls, Castlevania’s 1476 Wallachian salad, Ghost of Tsushima’s kabocha, How to Train Your Dragon’s Viking potato stockpile, and Mary Magdalene roasting corn on the cob for Jesus in a bestseller. (@adamroberts.bsky.social, @c0ast3r.endrun.io, @iximaz.bsky.social, @seelie.bsky.social, @lizardky.bsky.social, @karen-newcombe.bsky.social, @phoenixfire.bsky.social, @nfluger.bsky.social)

• “Corn” in the Bible and in older British writing means grain, usually wheat, so Joseph’s “seven ears of corn” illustrated as maize is wrong. (@rmdean.bsky.social, @aerliss.bsky.social)

• Modern wheat is a dwarf variety. A Roman field ready to harvest would be over Russell Crowe’s head, and Waterloo cavalrymen described wheat above them on horseback. (@spodomancy.bsky.social, @alexiterick.bsky.social, @jrowanbxl.bsky.social)

• Apples: a Honeycrisp tree “there since she was born” in Once Upon a Time (released 1991, and it was clearly a Red Delicious), a Granny Smith in Pirates of the Caribbean, and American varieties in The Muppet Christmas Carol. (@thebarbarienne.bsky.social, @rikibeth.bsky.social, @lorsted.bsky.social)

• Outlander raises merino sheep in Scotland while the breed was the Spanish Crown’s exclusive property. Its 1743 wild boar was also long extinct in Scotland. (@statsjew.bsky.social, @neilmcnair.bsky.social)

• Modern chicken breeds in period dramas, and Mad Men reportedly struggled to source a period-correct roast chicken. (@iguandonjim.bsky.social, @damemyniah.bsky.social)

• Horses: Friesians and Andalusians in everything regardless of time or place. Bucephalus was more likely an Akhal-Teke “longboi.” 17th-century war films get the breed wrong. War Admiral was about the same size as Seabiscuit. (@sagemom.bsky.social, @storm-x-crow.bsky.social, @marbleliberal.bsky.social, @transgemsbok.bsky.social)

• Dog breeds: a German Shepherd at the start of Gladiator (the breed dates to 1899), a Bouvier des Flandres in 1850s New Orleans, a modern bulldog in the Guy Ritchie Sherlock Holmes. (@gallonofalan.bsky.social, @bwillettcomics.bsky.social, @moderatecitrus.bsky.social)

• Django Unchained: red-and-white Boer goats, a 1930s color form of a breed introduced to the US in the 1990s. (@mcwyrm.northsky.social)

• Hamnet: a Harris’s hawk, which didn’t enter UK falconry until the 1970s. (@carrielaben.com)

• Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu has a common loon calling where loons don’t live. (@easterngray.bsky.social)

• Assassin’s Creed Valhalla HAS THE WRONG SQUIRRELS. (@mcnutcase.bsky.social)

• Turkey legs at medieval European feasts. (@nfluger.bsky.social)

• Teddy bears in Victorian nurseries; they date from 1904–07. (@bwillettcomics.bsky.social)

• Sense and Sensibility (Emma Thompson): the Dashwoods discuss the price of sugar during the abolitionist sugar boycott. (@rosequeue.bsky.social)

• No Country for Old Men (1980): 2005 Jack Link’s jerky at the gas station. (@amethystjoy.bsky.social, @pearlriverflow.com)

• Spotlight (2001–02): a Harpoon beer label from 2014. (@smittyroo.bsky.social)

• Sam Adams in 1970s California; it was created in 1986. (@audleyzdarke.myatproto.social)

• Better Call Saul: a 2015 Ziploc Grip ’n Seal bag and current Kroger pea packaging in the 2000s. (@rivkahwinter.bsky.social, @czyz.bsky.social)

• The Holdovers (1970): a Dr Pepper can with the modern logo and no pull tab. (@notincleveland.bsky.social, @notincleveland.bsky.social)

• Outlander‘s wool-waulking scene: fresh urine doesn’t work, it has to be stale for the ammonia. (@innes.bsky.social)

Clothes, hair and grooming

• Women’s hair down and loose in public, and uncovered heads outdoors. Heavily represented, including Greta Gerwig’s Little Women finale. (@tolcser.bsky.social, @karidru.bsky.social, @kayloulee.bsky.social, @choosedecency.bsky.social)

• Corsets: Regency gowns don’t have waistlines, nobody tight-laced like that, stays and corsets get confused, and stays worn on bare skin without a chemise would have read as madness. (@gpgomez.bsky.social, @crowdalova.bsky.social, @fhtagn22.bsky.social)

• Pride & Prejudice (2005): Caroline Bingley in a sleeveless gown at the Netherfield ball. “They would have called her naked!!!” (@astronautpants.bsky.social)

• X-Men: First Class: the women’s underwear “makes me viscerally furious.” (@edidin.bsky.social)

• Women in historical pieces with shaved armpits. (@autiebea.bsky.social)

• Zippers in Victorian dresses, ribbed cuffs before ribbing existed, synthetic fabric on Little House on the Prairie. (@derglitzkrieg.bsky.social, @measuredandslow.bsky.social, @marypezzulo.bsky.social)

• Crochet before the 19th century: scarves in House of Flying Daggers (set 859 CE) and a granny-square throw in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (pattern from 1885). (@jlkaufmann.bsky.social, @annette-stroud.bsky.social)

• Braveheart’s kilts arrive about 300 years early, and real nobles like Wallace and the Bruce dressed like the English knights they fought. (@lsaclassof2000.bsky.social, @neilkc.bsky.social)

• Peaky Blinders’ eponymous flat caps are wrong for the period, and the women have beach waves. (@stephencobden.bsky.social, @skelekate.bsky.social)

• Liquid eyeliner before the 1950s was mostly a sign of a sex worker off stage. The OP singled this out. (@berlinerbarbie.bsky.social, @deargodwhaat.bsky.social)

• Everyone in ancient Egypt wearing the nemes headdress, which only Pharaoh could wear. (@blatherscribe.bsky.social)

• M*A*S*H‘s “Three’s Company haircuts” on Korean War soldiers. (@sidecarnage.bsky.social)

• Titanic’s makeup is “super 90s.” (@porcelainmortal.bsky.social)

• Wrinkle-free clothing after office sex in Mad Men. (@zhinxy.bsky.social)

• Doc Brown wears Velcro shoes in 1955; a 10-year-old spotted it in 1985. (@kevinistired.bsky.social)

• Welcome to Derry (1962): a Black woman’s straight perm with no protective styling at bedtime, and a mood ring from 1974. (@keezyyoung.bsky.social)

• 1980s-set shows with hair far too tame for the era. (@thecrazybear.bsky.social)

Military, weapons and armor

• Commanders shouting “FIRE!” at archers. You shout that to guns; the word is “loose.” Also archers holding at full draw, and longbowmen marching through rain with strung bows. (@inkbotkowalski.bsky.social, @geoffklock.bsky.social, @funglethegnole.bsky.social, @lmorgan.bsky.social)

• Ribbon racks: a Navy veteran who memorized ribbon order calls it the Van Halen brown M&Ms test. Manhattan gives a WWII officer Korean War ribbons, and one West Wing admiral’s ribbons flip between shots. (@ddumnodnarb.bsky.social, @generationalize.bsky.social, @jwvizzard.bsky.social)

• Temple of Doom (1935): Lee-Enfield No. 4s that entered service in 1941. A dad caught it on first viewing. (@zz9pluralzalpha.bsky.social, @dbeecher.bsky.social)

• Raiders and Last Crusade: MP-40s and MP-38s years early, and an Afrika Korps palm insignia in 1938. (@enginvir.bsky.social, @brushwolf.bsky.social, @davallone.bsky.social)

• Stirrups on Roman cavalry in Gladiator and on Troy: Fall of a City. (@c0ast3r.endrun.io, @cocktailchem.bsky.social)

• Greyhound: a Fletcher-class destroyer in February 1942; the first was commissioned that May. (@brynntannehill.bsky.social)

• Pearl Harbor: an Aegis cruiser in the harbor, and the Oklahoma rolls over showing four screws. (@doodlesthegreat.bsky.social, @honer.bsky.social)

• Patton used M-47 tanks as King Tigers. The M-47 is also known as the Patton. (@charlessurface.bsky.social)

• Full plate armor before about 1400, including Robin Hood (2010) and The 13th Warrior. (@rattatatouille.bsky.social, @zenwithapen.bsky.social, @costakout.bsky.social)

• Kingdom Come: Deliverance’s mail aventails sag far too low. (@freydalpishti.bsky.social)

• Wonder Woman: Steve Trevor’s “disguise” includes a Pour le Mérite, like smuggling a spy into the US wearing an Oscar and a Medal of Freedom. (@ironvader501.bsky.social)

• Django Unchained: nearly every gun is a postwar design. (@loxophile.bsky.social)

• Red Dead Redemption 2: a Volcanic pistol that went out of production before Arthur Morgan was born. (@ofvick.bsky.social)

• Dark Winds: a 1971 Vietnam vet in 1981 BDU pants. (@unityandsolidarity.bsky.social)

• The Dam Busters: .50 calibre rounds loaded into a Lancaster in May 1943. (@grouchomerckx.eurosky.social)

• The Passion of the Christ: Longinus uses a pilum, not a hasta or lancea. (@vitabreva.bsky.social)

• Zodiac: “Eagle Scout, actually. First Class.” First Class is a lower rank. (@alanmorlock.bsky.social)

• Disarming a nuke: cut any wire, or all of them. They’re designed to be hard to detonate. (From an Air Force veteran who did it.) (@treystokes.bsky.social)

Vehicles, trains and buildings

• “Anything involving trains. Always wrong.” Even Murder on the Orient Express: it’s the Simplon Orient Express, and it had no lounge car. (@eliotandersen.bsky.social)

• Dunkirk: 1960s railway carriages (BR Mk1s, introduced 1951) in 1940. (@anothercinna.bsky.social, @sakarafox.bsky.social)

• Better Call Saul: Mike arrives on the Rail Runner four years before it opened. (@mosheroperandi.bsky.social)

• Captain Marvel (1995): she vaults a turnstile on the LA Metro, which was proof-of-payment until the late 2010s, and there are flexposts between cars that weren’t required until about ten years ago. (@jfruh.bsky.social, @seasouthern.bsky.social)

• Argo (1979): the Hollywood sign is shown falling apart, but it had been rebuilt the year before. The Nice Guys (1977) gets it right. (@themattmcd.bsky.social)

• Home Alone: the McCallisters leave on a DC-10 and land in Paris on a 757. (@petchmo.bsky.social)

• Hidden Figures (1961) opens with a 1964 Ford Galaxie. (@adem.bsky.social)

• Cars that are all within five years of the setting. Real streets have decades-old beaters held together with Bondo. (@jwmcartist.bsky.social, @captainsunbeam.bsky.social)

• Crystal Skull: Mutt rides a 2008 Harley Softail with disc brakes. (@bsakat.bsky.social)

• Bumblebee (1987): a Golden Gate median added in 2015. (@pdelahanty.bsky.social)

• Raiders: Indy flies out past a Golden Gate Bridge not finished until 1937, in the wrong direction, over “Thailand” (then Siam) and “Jordan” (then Transjordan). (@langdongrant.bsky.social, @langdongrant.bsky.social, @langdongrant.bsky.social, @langdongrant.bsky.social)

• 1960s–80s New York with green street signs. Each borough had its own color (Manhattan was black on yellow). (@markricehistory.bsky.social)

• NYC apartment door hardware that isn’t buried under decades of paint. (@aleph.bsky.social)

• Portcullis House in Westminster shots set decades or a century early. (@joxley.jmoxley.co.uk, @stephengraham.bsky.social)

• Mindhunter: bike lanes in 1970s Atlanta. (@simoneskeen.xyz)

• Smart meters on houses in period shoots, and chainsaw-cut logs everywhere. (@chibdm.bsky.social, @a-ghalldachd.bsky.social)

• Kingdom of Heaven: Orlando Bloom visits “where Christ was crucified” on a mountain, not in the huge church the crusaders had built inside the walls. (@adammbishop.bsky.social)

• Shōgun (1980): characters walk through Himeji Castle’s door into Nijō Castle’s interior, 75 miles away. (@zackdavisson.com)

• The Brutalist: a modern shipping container a decade or two early. (@bookfisher.bsky.social)

• Titanic: Jack ice-fished on Lake Wissota, which was created by a dam in 1917. (@bpa12.bsky.social)

Music and sound

• Back to the Future: Marty’s Gibson ES-345 is from 1958, and it would have had heavier strings than he’s used to. (@abh93.bsky.social, @almightybob.bsky.social)

• Hamilton plays “Here Comes the Bride,” from Lohengrin, about 50 years early. (@crary.bsky.social)

• Apollo 13: Lovell’s daughter is upset about the Beatles breaking up, with Let It Be in her stack a month before release. (@hooverstreetrag.org)

• Kate & Leopold: a man from 1876 has seen La Bohème and The Pirates of Penzance. (@marccold.bsky.social, @composerose.bsky.social)

• Pride & Prejudice: Lizzy and Darcy dance in the 1790s to a tune from 1695. (@composerose.bsky.social)

• Elizabeth‘s climax is scored to Mozart’s Requiem, 200 years later. (@emilygadabout.bsky.social)

• Shawshank: Andy pulls out the 1983 Previtali Figaro and plays the 1968 Böhm recording. (@tagishsimon.bsky.social)

• Good Morning, Vietnam (1965) uses “What a Wonderful World” (1967). (@jackszwergold.bsky.social)

• The Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake (August 1973) plays “Sweet Home Alabama” (1974). (@casualfrankenstein.bsky.social)

• Last Crusade’s crusader theme is stylistically 16th-century. (@garrt.bsky.social)

• Pirates singing sea shanties. The Golden Age of Piracy ended in the 1730s; shanties are 1800s. (@lymerpg.bsky.social)

• Stranger Things: telling a kid in November 1983 to listen to the Smiths, whose discography was two UK singles. “Even Hawkins, IN’s greatest hipster was not THAT hip.” (@petercashwell.bsky.social)

• Amadeus is tuned to A=440 “instead of A=432, as was the style at the time.” (A joke.) (@meredithmoo25.bsky.social)

• The Lord’s Prayer in Master and Commander is the 1928 version, not 1662. A Catholic funeral in Behind the Candelabra (1987) uses the 2011 response “and with your spirit.” Outlander: Blood of My Blood has a post–Vatican II Hail Mary. (@abelian.bsky.social, @funkelly.bsky.social, @megsokay.bsky.social)

• Old valve radios and TVs that play instantly instead of warming up. (@tantzaerine.bsky.social)

• Pre-1850 concert audiences sitting in respectful silence. They’d have been chatting. (@locked247.bsky.social)

• A dissent from the needle-drop complaints: non-diegetic songs shouldn’t count, or the original score is anachronistic too. (@spearhafoc.bsky.social)

Dates, calendars and sports

• The Terminator: “Thursday, May 12,” 1984. It was a Saturday. “Can’t trust James Cameron.” (@dbonowitz.bsky.social)

• Ghostbusters: “the Tunguska blast of 1909.” It was June 30, 1908, and Dan Aykroyd would know. (@michael-w-busch.bsky.social, @danwhitehead.net)

• Shawshank: police read Hadley his rights in early 1966, months before Miranda. (@tiffanyclay.dev)

• Boogie Nights (1983): Jerry Brown’s portrait in a courtroom when Deukmejian was governor. (@kleinman.bsky.social)

• O Brother: a 1937 gubernatorial campaign off-cycle, with an incumbent who couldn’t legally run again. (@colinmbrown.bsky.social, @ezracycle.bsky.social)

• Clue (1954): Miss Scarlett mentions Perry Mason (1956). (@buxton9.bsky.social)

• M*A*S*H had “too many Christmases in Korea” to stretch a three-year war over eleven seasons. One poster suggests treating it as science fiction where time ran amok. (@notincleveland.bsky.social, @tabbylavalamp.bsky.social)

• Frozen: set in July 1843, but the snowman-song bicycle is from about 1880 and the ice-bound ships are modeled on the Endurance. (@jephalopod.bsky.social, @santtu.bsky.social, @twirlynoodle.com)

• The Hateful Eight: a Confederate prison camp in West Virginia, which split off to stay in the Union. (@jonathanhennessey.bsky.social)

• Die Hard: Notre Dame plays USC on Christmas Eve. (@therock1996fan.bsky.social, @wingador.bsky.social)

• Field of Dreams: Shoeless Joe bats right-handed, right after “Babe Ruth copied his swing.” (@adamgretz.bsky.social)

• The Natural: a walk-off home run by the road team. (@danziger.bsky.social)

• Moneyball omits Zito, Hudson, Mulder and Tejada, and gives Ron Washington’s “pickin’ machine” line to Beane. (@waiterich.bsky.social, @eitang.bsky.social)

• The King of Kong: during the documentary, neither Steve nor Billy holds the record. (@textfiles.com)

• Ed Wood: Lugosi complains about giant bug movies before the first one (Them!, 1954). (@evanwaters.bsky.social)

• The Big Bang Theory: Sheldon met Wil Wheaton at Dixie Trek in 1996. The last one was 1994, and Wheaton never attended. (@johnhudgens.bsky.social)

• Master and Commander: the island cricket match uses rules that weren’t legal yet (via “a real Cricket Sicko” cousin). (@aeirlys.bsky.social)

• Hamnet: the front crawl, centuries early. (@comedyclub4kids.bsky.social)

Customs, manners and daily life

• A Victorian butler would never admit a guest without announcing them. “I DON’T CARE THAT NBC’S DRACULA INVENTED WIFI.” (@sporks.bsky.social)

• The Gilded Age: the butler congratulates Ada on her engagement. You congratulate the groom; you wish the bride joy. (@taraariano.com)

• Service à la russe before 1820. (@thatmarkelliott.bsky.social)

• 19th-century women of a certain class walking alone with no servant or carriage. Deadwood’s Mrs. Garrett, trapped in her hotel room, gets it right. (@profgadfly.bsky.social)

• 1970s characters stepping outside to smoke. The doctor in The Exorcist lights up in the hospital. (@bobcalhoun.bsky.social)

• Apollo 13 doesn’t have nearly enough people smoking. (@chagadelic.bsky.social)

• Once Upon a Time in Hollywood: Cliff Booth worries about statutory rape in 1969 Los Angeles. (@noamchompers.bsky.social)

• The Americans: the kids walk away from a pay phone without waiting for the dime to come back. (@gilmurray.bsky.social)

• 1940s conspirators on long-distance calls. Operators listened in. (@rebaxer.bsky.social)

• Household refrigerators in wartime European films like Jojo Rabbit. (@billiebernard.com)

• Candles and oil lamps everywhere. “Those things cost money!” (@natsauce.bsky.social, @zevsamm.bsky.social)

• Snapping handheld photos indoors in color in the 1930s. Kodachrome was ISO 10. (@awawa.pics)

• High fives before the 1970s. (@cihstudios.bsky.social, @erikfallsdown.bsky.social)

• RENT: starving artists who can somehow afford AIDS medication (the OP). Replies pointed out family support, cheap thrift-store answering machines, and government-funded treatment. (@deargodwhaat.bsky.social, @withaykie.bsky.social)

• Every 1980s kid owning a real Sony Walkman. (@jonpaulmaki.com)

• Titanic: third class wasn’t locked below. People died because they couldn’t find the way up. (@captainjzh.bsky.social)

• Raiders: the Nazis couldn’t have had that military presence in 1930s Egypt. (@aaronhughellis.bsky.social)

• Gladiators: most losers survived, it was closer to pro wrestling, and trainees never got live swords. (@rajeshthelion.bsky.social)

• Gladiator: Maximus never consults the sacred chickens before battle. (@thebrucestarchaser.bsky.social)

• Greek statues and Egyptian buildings left plain. “Paint was fucking everywhere!” Also medieval worlds with no color in clothing. (@drakegenderthief.bsky.social, @laknight89.bsky.social)

• Pirates always working hard (the draw was that it was easier than other sailing), and too few Dutch and French pirates. (@joeyclose.bsky.social, @thrinagabheart.bsky.social)

• Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves: “Wanted” posters in an illiterate society 300 years before the printing press. (@iainrb.bsky.social)

• Sound of Music: the Alpine escape route would have led into Germany; the real family took a train to Italy. (@themegnapkin.bsky.social)

Names

• The original spark: is Verity an anachronistic name for a woman in her 40s? The replies were full of people who know Veritys that age, plus references to Verity Lambert (born 1937) and an Agatha Christie character. (@lauragordon.bsky.social, @hern.bsky.social, @idacolumite.bsky.social)

• The “Tiffany Problem”: a name that seems anachronistic but isn’t. (@llyfrgellbabel.bsky.social)

• Characters named Samantha born before Bewitched (1964). (@statsjew.bsky.social)

• The Americans and Stranger Things have no teen named Jennifer or Lisa. (@smoemeth.bsky.social)

• An Indian character in historical London named Tagore, a name only one real family has ever had. (@suleikhasnyder.bsky.social)

• Assassin’s Creed Odyssey: “Barnabas” and “Markos” in 5th-century BC Greece. (@thraexbarbatus.bsky.social)

• “Maximus Decimus Meridius” is not a coherent Roman name. (@segatape.bsky.social)

• The counterpoint: some people just have uncommon names. (@thekatriarch.bsky.social)

Not historical, but still wrong

The prompt asked for history; the thread took in geography, physics and procedure too.

• Toto’s “Africa”: Kilimanjaro rises above the Serengeti, 300 miles away. (@noladevil.bsky.social)

• “Party in the U.S.A.”: leaving LAX, the Hollywood sign would be on your left. (@jlazarus.bsky.social)

• Fargo: arriving in Minneapolis from Brainerd on 35W North. (@confoundedjoe.bsky.social)

• Monk holds a UC Berkeley reunion at Stanford. (@furblescout.bsky.social)

• The Return of the King: Osgiliath is nearly 20 miles too far south on every film map. (@thelionmachine.bsky.social)

• Game of Thrones: re-firing obsidian like metal. (@transgemsbok.bsky.social)

• Hotwiring cars built since the 1990s. (@yidboy.bsky.social)

• Tár: Lydia conducts left-handed. (@violanorth.bsky.social)

• Chessboards set up with a white square at A1, about half the time. (@shiftlefti.st)

• Star Trek Into Darkness: there’s no “aft nacelle” on that class of ship. (@comraderobot.bsky.social)

• The Wizard of Oz: the Scarecrow says “isosceles” instead of “right triangle.” (@bjkeefe.bsky.social)

• The last Harry Potter book: apparating north before dawn after Easter means it should be lighter, not darker. (@docbrown.bsky.social)

• Bird calls where those birds don’t live: loons, red kites in westerns, kookaburras in every jungle. (@adrianspeed.bsky.social, @daniel-a-villar.bsky.social)

• Courtroom scenes with a “prosecutor” in a civil trial. (@kriswernowsky.com)

• Only Murders in the Building: a New Yorker pulls Western Stubby butter from the fridge. (@kula.tproa.net)

Things they got right

A few people flipped the prompt.

• Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure impressed one poster with its verisimilitude, relative to expectations. (@aklingus.bsky.social)

• The Sapphires gave its 1960s band a baritone sax with only a low B♭. “THANK YOU, WHOEVER YOU ARE!” (@bobbynealmusic.bsky.social)

• Life on Mars: a viewer guessed the ending from the anachronistic beer pumps in the pub, which were planted deliberately. (@casuallychaotic.bsky.social)

• Titanic correctly shows the center screw, driven by a turbine that can’t reverse, coming to a stop. (@gdkalmbach.bsky.social)

• Peter Jackson’s King Kong is the only period NYC film to get the skyline right. (@drpepsi.bsky.social)

• Ang Lee obsessed over the seasonal length of sheep’s wool in Sense and Sensibility. (@grifftheimpaler.bsky.social)

• The English dub of Baccano! has someone photoshopping 1920s-accurate banknotes into scenes. (@mharwyb.horse)

• Army of Darkness, of all films, uses “loose.” (@patter.bsky.social)

Best jokes

• Braveheart is set in the late 13th century, “but Mel Gibson wasn’t born till 1956!” (@crow.stormsong.org)

• Star Wars: Obi-Wan says Vader murdered Luke’s father, “but historically that is not accurate.” (@azalben.bsky.social)

• Taking Woodstock: “I am briefly visible in the background. This is inaccurate as I would not be born for another ~15 years.” (@wonderfulstarfish.bsky.social)

• “Leonardo DiCaprio was not really on the Titanic.” (@fraserramon.bsky.social)

• Dirty Dancing is set in 1963, “but architects didn’t invent corners until 1968.” (@averynicedog.bsky.social)

• What fuel were the Flintstones pumping? And Fred’s Santa suit predates Coca-Cola’s version by a few thousand years. (@itsthebrandi.bsky.social, @ersatzempress.bsky.social)

• Monty Python and the Holy Grail: King Arthur is arrested and put in a police car. (@yasuohatsu.bsky.social)

• Bram Stoker’s Dracula: “In reality, vampires do not exist.” (@aldokelrast.bsky.social)

• Ancient Romans wouldn’t have British accents; “they’d be calling each other paisan and talking about Cadillacs and gabagol.” (@trainboy.nyc)

• “The biggest historical inaccuracy in most films is they show Napoleon with his arm like this when actually he had it like that.” (@casmilus.bsky.social)

• The OP, partway through: “A lot of pedants here huh.” (@deargodwhaat.bsky.social)

• A bystander’s summary: the thread taught them that more people care about M*A*S*H than expected, and that “there’s an entire regiment of women with an exhaustive, terrifying depth of knowledge on the Regency era.” (@leavittalone.bsky.social)