History Sandbox / DatedHistoryCleanup

* The view popularized by [[Creator/WalterScott Sir Walter Scott's]] ''Literature/{{Ivanhoe}}'' of plucky "Saxon" commoners still resisting their "Norman" overlords a century or two after the conquest has been shown to be hogwash - but that doesn't stop it showing up in many subsequent RobinHood adaptations, where the Sheriff's soldiers are referred to as Normans to make it OK for Robin to kill them. In the Robin Hood story, the Merry Men also long for "Good King Richard" to return and oust the evil Norman usurper, John. But Richard was John's brother, so, presumably, a Norman as well. Also it's often forgotten in the stories that although John ''did'' take control of England when Richard was held prisoner in Austria, he also succeeded him as king after his death (not without a rebellion, though it was put down).

* ''Film/United93'' was produced before the cockpit voice recorder tape or accurate transcripts were released to the public. As a result, the words and actions of Jarrah and Ghamdi while in the cockpit are now known to have been slightly different in reality, and it is possible that the pilots Dahl and Homer were wounded but alive up to the crash instead of killed immediately. There is also no evidence whatsoever that [[AcceptableTargets German]] passenger Christian Adams panicked or promoted collaboration with the terrorists. That was a complete invention for the film.

* Speaking of Cao Cao, thanks to the cultural impact of ''Literature/TheRomanceOfTheThreeKingdoms'' in China, Japan and Korea, it was generally just accepted that he was a DirtyCoward [[OpportunisticBastard opportunistic]] MagnificentBastard [[note]]The main reason Cao Cao became the villain was because many empires often hailed from the region that was once Liu Bei's state of Shu-Han, so portraying Cao as a villain and the also underdog Liu as a hero was useful for morale and political reasons since Chinese culture was big on precedent and [[HistoryRepeats history repeating]][[/note]]. It wouldn't be until UsefulNotes/MaoZedong (an admirer of Cao Cao) began ordering more positive depictions of Cao that there was a real attempt to study the historical Cao. However, even now there is often pushback to such attempts due to how ingrained the idea of "Cao Cao the villain" is in culture. The 2012 drama ''Cao Cao, the hero'', for example, wasn't released in China until 2015 (and even then renamed to simply ''Cao Cao'') due to people refusing to see Cao Cao as anything other than a villainous figure. This is very notable because the series was explicitly based on historical records, rather than the ''Romance'' like most works.

* ''Film/TheStatueOfLiberty'': The story of Bartholdi and Laboulaye conceiving of the statue as a monument to the emancipation of America's slaves, presented in this film as fact, seems to be myth, as [[https://www.nps.gov/stli/learn/historyculture/black-statue-of-liberty.htm later research]] has indicated.

* Painters and musicians of the 18th and 19th century were captivated by [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orientalism Orientalism]], and especially by the concept of the Turkish [[RoyalHarem harem]]. They were enraptured by the idea of hundreds of beautiful young concubines or "odalisques" loitering around in various states of undress, fawned on by cringing slaves and guarded by eunuchs, all existing solely for the pleasure of the Sultan. The best-known works influenced by this are probably Music/WolfgangAmadeusMozart's ''Abduction from the Seraglio'' and Ingres's ''Grand Odalisque''.

* In the 19th century, historians called megaliths "druidic stones" as they attributed their erection to Celtic people. The belief persisted until the end of TheTwentiethCentury, explaining why, in ComicBook/{{Asterix}} (created in 1959), Obélix is a menhir delivery man (and carver) by profession. But since the 21th century, it been established that European megaliths were older, and actually dated from the Neolithic.

* Similarly to the above, the Mound Builders and other advanced civilizations in the Americas were later denied by Europeans as being Native American, a view which thrived in the 19th century. They ignored even the accounts from Spanish and French explorers who'd met the people there, or those who knew them, in previous centuries, instead positing that they were actually Europeans, Chinese, Phoenicians, Indians ([[NamesTheSame from India]]), or Jews (the ten lost tribes of Israel-this theory was used in Literature/TheBookOfMormon for instance). Tropes like {{Precursors}} and AncientAstronauts are often recycled versions of these, just replacing Old Worlders with aliens.