History Main / FreakierThanFiction

* Everyone knows that the BritsLoveTea. What people don't know is that they ''hollowed out a mountain'' in order to build a power station that could respond to sudden spikes in electricity demand caused by everyone putting their electric tea kettles on at once (such as during half-time of the F.A. Cup final). Built in 1974, Dinorwig power station in Wales is the fastest operating power station, able to generate 1,650 MW of electricity in ''seconds'' should the need arise. It is inside the mountain in order to contain the enormous ''explosion'' that will result if it ever fails to cope with demand.[[note]]Actually to preserve the natural beauty of Snowdonia National Park, they offer guided tours.

* [[SerialKiller BTK]] Dennis Rader, of Wichita, Kansas, has probably been the basis for several fictional serial killers. He would have gotten away scot-free, right under everyone's nose, too, if he hadn't [[StupidCrooks gotten himself caught]] twenty years after the fact by [[StalkerWithACrush stalking]] the local newspaper and the detective who was head of his case way back when. His crimes were horrifying, but his reported beliefs about the afterlife were worse: he thought his victims would be his eternal slaves.[[note]]Another serial killer, the Zodiac, expressed a similar belief in one of his letters. Unlike Rader, [[KarmaHoudini he was never caught]]. [[/note]] His pastor, who sat through the trial up to this point in demonstration of the belief that even killers could achieve salvation if properly repentant, [[MoralEventHorizon stood up and walked out]] (Rader previously was president of their church council). Another major aspect of how he was caught is remarkable -- when he'd started his killings, computerization hadn't taken off. When he resumed [[EvilGloating the taunting letters]], he sent a 1.44 MB floppy disk to the local news network... [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Rader#Arrest without realizing it had metadata from a deleted]] Microsoft Word file on it, which was last modified by "Dennis". [[HoistByHisOwnPetard Had he not sent in that floppy disk, he likely wouldn't have been caught.]] Not only that, but he asked police whether it could be traced, and ''believed them when they claimed it couldn't''. He even expressed ''betrayal'' over their using this, apparently thinking of them as in a way his friends and not people trying to arrest him.

* Everyone knows that the BritsLoveTea. What people don't know is that they ''hollowed out a mountain'' in order to build a power station that could respond to sudden spikes in electricity demand caused by everyone putting their electric tea kettles on at once (such as during half-time of the F.A. Cup final). Built in 1974, Dinorwig power station in Wales is the fastest operating power station, able to generate 1,650 MW of electricity in ''seconds'' should the need arise. It is inside the mountain in order to contain the enormous ''explosion'' that will result if it ever fails to cope with demand.[[note]]Actually to preserve the natural beauty of Snowdonia National Park.

* Everyone knows that the BritsLoveTea. What people don't know is that they ''hollowed out a mountain'' in order to build a power station that could respond to sudden spikes in electricity demand caused by everyone putting their electric tea kettles on at once (such as during half-time of the F.A. Cup final). Built in 1974, Dinorwig power station in Wales is the fastest operating power station, able to generate 1,650 MW of electricity in ''seconds'' should the need arise. It is inside the mountain in order to contain the enormous ''explosion'' that will result if it ever fails to cope with demand.

* ''Film/{{Elizabeth}}: The Golden Age'' depicts the Armada during Elizabeth I's reign and makes mention of some casualties on the English side. In reality, the English didn't lose a single ship during the Armada.

* UsefulNotes/NorthKorea would be considered a cliche {{Dystopia}} if it weren't real. It would have been invaded long ago if it weren't for its ally China, but it's also too crazy for said ally to trust it with much aid. Not to mention that the country was born from, and largely owes its failures to, a controversial political and economic ideology. If an author wrote it, people would think it was cliché author tract. Indeed, there are quite a few people who don't believe North Korea is as bad as it is, and some have even traveled there to see what's what for themselves.

Originating in the Creator/LordByron quote "Tis strange - but true; for truth is always strange;

* [[SerialKiller BTK]] Dennis Rader, of Wichita, Kansas, has probably been the basis for several fictional serial killers. He would have gotten away scot-free, right under everyone's nose, too, if he hadn't [[StupidCrooks gotten himself caught]] twenty years after the fact by [[StalkerWithACrush stalking]] the local newspaper and the detective who was head of his case way back when. His crimes were horrifying, but his reported beliefs about the afterlife were worse: he thought his victims would be his eternal slaves. [[note]]Another serial killer, the Zodiac, expressed a similar belief in one of his letters. Unlike Rader, [[KarmaHoudini he was never caught]]. [[/note]] His pastor, who sat through the trial up to this point in demonstration of the belief that even killers could achieve salvation if properly repentant, [[MoralEventHorizon stood up and walked out]] (Rader previously was president of their church council). Another major aspect of how he was caught is remarkable -- when he'd started his killings, computerization hadn't taken off. When he resumed [[EvilGloating the taunting letters]], he sent a 1.44 MB floppy disk to the local news network... [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Rader#Arrest without realizing it had metadata from a deleted]] Microsoft Word file on it, which was last modified by "Dennis". [[HoistByHisOwnPetard Had he not sent in that floppy disk, he likely wouldn't have been caught.]] Not only that, but he asked police whether it could be traced, and ''believed them when they claimed it couldn't''. He even expressed ''betrayal'' over their using this, apparently thinking of them as in a way his friends and not people trying to arrest him.

* ''Series/{{CSINY}}'' based an episode around the real-life case of Whitney Cerak and Laura Van Ryn where two girls were in an accident, one killed and one surviving but too injured to identify herself, and the surviving and dead girl's identities were switched. However, there's an added twist: the spiteful mother of the "dead" girl smothered the survivor before the switch was discovered, ultimately getting her arrested for murdering her own daughter.

* ''Series/FawltyTowers'': Creator/JohnCleese [[WriteWhoYouKnow based Basil Fawlty on Donald Sinclair]], an eccentric and irascible Torquay hotelier whom he had observed during a stay in his hotel during a ''Series/MontyPythonsFlyingCircus'' shoot. Among the things Sinclair did to the Monty Python troupe was criticizing Creator/TerryGilliam's table etiquette, throwing Creator/EricIdle's briefcase out of a window because he believed it contained a bomb, expressing disbelief that Creator/MichaelPalin had pre-booked the TV to catch a show, and starting a loud argument in the reception with Cleese when he requested a taxi. Years after the success of the show, Sinclair's widow contacted the newspapers to complain about the depiction of the character based on her husband, claiming that Cleese had unfairly exaggerated Sinclair's eccentricity, incompetence, and foul temper. [[StreisandEffect Far from salvaging her husband's reputation, all it did was provoke a lot of independent witnesses]] ([[StreisandEffect including]] ''[[StreisandEffect Sinclair's own children]]'') [[StreisandEffect to also contact the papers with a lot of anecdotes about Sinclair]]. All of these accounts suggested that, if anything, Cleese had actually ''downplayed'' how irritable Sinclair was. His widow kept silent after that.

* ''Series/{{CSINY}}'' based an episode around the real-life case of Whitney Cerak and Laura Van Ryn where two girls were in an accident, one killed and one surviving but too injured to identify herself, and the surviving and dead girl's identities were switched. However, there's an added twist: the spiteful mother of the "dead" girl smothered the survivor before the switch was discovered, ultimately getting her arrested for murdering her own daughter.

* ''Series/FawltyTowers'': Creator/JohnCleese [[WriteWhoYouKnow based Basil Fawlty on Donald Sinclair]], an eccentric and irascible Torquay hotelier whom he had observed during a stay in his hotel during a ''Series/MontyPythonsFlyingCircus'' shoot. Among the things Sinclair did to the Monty Python troupe was criticizing Creator/TerryGilliam's table etiquette, throwing Creator/EricIdle's briefcase out of a window because he believed it contained a bomb, expressing disbelief that Creator/MichaelPalin had pre-booked the TV to catch a show, and starting a loud argument in the reception with Cleese when he requested a taxi. Years after the success of the show, Sinclair's widow contacted the newspapers to complain about the depiction of the character based on her husband, claiming that Cleese had unfairly exaggerated Sinclair's eccentricity, incompetence, and foul temper. [[StreisandEffect Far from salvaging her husband's reputation, all it did was provoke a lot of independent witnesses]] ([[StreisandEffect including]] ''[[StreisandEffect Sinclair's own children]]'') [[StreisandEffect to also contact the papers with a lot of anecdotes about Sinclair]]. All of these accounts suggested that, if anything, Cleese had actually ''downplayed'' how irritable Sinclair was. His widow kept silent after that.

* ''Series/FawltyTowers'': Creator/JohnCleese [[WriteWhoYouKnow based Basil Fawlty on Donald Sinclair]], an eccentric and irascible Torquay hotelier whom he had observed during a stay in his hotel during a ''Series/MontyPythonsFlyingCircus'' shoot. Among the things Sinclair did to the Monty Python troupe was criticizing Creator/TerryGilliam's table etiquette, throwing Creator/EricIdle's briefcase out of a window because he believed it contained a bomb, expressing disbelief that Creator/MichaelPalin had pre-booked the TV to catch a show, and starting a loud argument in the reception with Cleese when he requested a taxi. Years after the success of the show, Sinclair's widow contacted the newspapers to complain about the depiction of the character based on her husband, claiming that Cleese had unfairly exaggerated Sinclair's eccentricity, incompetence, and foul temper. [[StreisandEffect Far from salvaging her husband's reputation, all it did was provoke a lot of independent witnesses]] ([[StreisandEffect including]] ''[[StreisandEffect Sinclair's own children]]) [[StreisandEffect to also contact the papers with a lot of anecdotes about Sinclair]]. All of these accounts suggested that, if anything, Cleese had actually ''downplayed'' how irritable Sinclair was. His widow kept silent after that.

* ''Series/FawltyTowers'': Creator/JohnCleese [[WriteWhoYouKnow based Basil Fawlty on Donald Sinclair]], an eccentric and irascible Torquay hotelier whom he had observed during a stay in his hotel during a ''Series/MontyPythonsFlyingCircus'' shoot. Among the things Sinclair did to the Monty Python troupe was criticizing Creator/TerryGilliam's table etiquette, throwing Creator/EricIdle's briefcase out of a window because he believed it contained a bomb, expressing disbelief that Creator/MichaelPalin had pre-booked the TV to catch a show, and starting a loud argument in the reception with Cleese when he requested a taxi. Years after the success of the show, Sinclair's widow contacted the newspapers to complain about the depiction of the character based on her husband, claiming that Cleese had unfairly exaggerated Sinclair's eccentricity, incompetence, and foul temper. [[StreisandEffect Far from salvaging her husband's reputation, all it did was provoke a lot of independent witnesses (including Sinclair's own children) to also contact the papers with a lot of anecdotes about Sinclair]]. All of these accounts suggested that, if anything, Cleese had actually ''downplayed'' how irritable Sinclair was. His widow kept silent after that.

* [[SerialKiller BTK]] Dennis Rader, of Wichita, Kansas, has probably been the basis for several fictional serial killers. He would have gotten away scot-free, right under everyone's nose, too, if he hadn't [[ManipulativeBastard decided to get himself caught]] twenty years after the fact by [[StalkerWithACrush stalking]] the local newspaper and the detective who was head of his case way back when. His crimes were horrifying, but his reported beliefs about the afterlife were worse: he thought his victims would be his eternal slaves. [[note]]Another serial killer, the Zodiac, expressed a similar belief in one of his letters. Unlike Rader, [[KarmaHoudini he was never caught]]. [[/note]] His pastor, who sat through the trial up to this point in demonstration of the belief that even killers could achieve salvation if properly repentant, [[MoralEventHorizon stood up and walked out]] (Rader previously was president of their church council). Another major aspect of how he was caught is remarkable -- when he'd started his killings, computerization hadn't taken off. When he resumed [[EvilGloating the taunting letters]], he sent a 1.44 MB floppy disk to the local news network... [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Rader#Arrest without realizing it had metadata from a deleted]] Microsoft Word file on it, which was last modified by "Dennis". [[HoistByHisOwnPetard Had he not sent in that floppy disk, he likely wouldn't have been caught.]] Not only that, but he asked police whether it could be traced, and ''believed them when they claimed it couldn't''. He even expressed ''betrayal'' over their using this, apparently thinking of them as in a way his friends and not people trying to arrest him.

* The character of Amon Goeth from ''Film/SchindlersList'' was actually ''[[HistoricalVillainDowngrade nicer]]'' [[HistoricalVillainDowngrade than his real-life basis]]. Despite already being portrayed as a sadistic monster who can't feel empathy, tortures and kills prisoners just ForTheEvulz, and shoots children, Creator/StevenSpielberg deliberately toned down his inhumanity because he thought audiences wouldn't believe just how ridiculously monstrous Goeth really was (he had a torture dungeon underneath his house, fed ''live'' inmates to his dogs, would randomly shoot people from his window every day just for the hell of it, singled out crowds of children to be executed en masse, and is believed to have personally killed over five-hundred people and sent thousands more to their deaths).[[note]]And even then, some critics ''still'' thought that his pointlessly horrific villainy was "[[RealityIsUnrealistic unrealistic]]".[[/note]].

* Timely Comics' (future Creator/MarvelComics) writers imagined the ComicBook/RedSkull back in 1941 as a cartoonish exaggeration of evil fit for propaganda against UsefulNotes/NaziGermany, as nobody would believe such creature did exist. At least [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oskar_Dirlewanger a few]] [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinhard_Heydrich senior]] [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Schellenberg figures]] of the Nazi empire did suspiciously similar things during [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarII the war]], but the world found out only years after.

* [[BasedOnATrueStory Obviously]], the events of the film ''Film/Apollo13'' actually happened. But what they don't mention is that there were several ''additional'' malfunctions, and one or two of the events mentioned in passing in the movie were actually critical problems in reality. These were removed/downsized because, yes, producers thought no-one would believe it. No-one in the Apollo program at the time would have believed it either had it not actually happened. (The movie depicts Sy Liebergot as saying "It's reading a ''quadruple'' failure. That can't happen!" because that's what he really said. But it ''did'' happen.) Also, some test audiences reacted poorly to the ending, saying it could never happen and was totally unrealistic. After the original flight, NASA amended their training simulations to include malfunctions that happened to Apollo 13, which had previously been ruled out as impossible. [[note]]In truth, Apollo 13 created a seismic shift in how simulations were handled. While prior simulation was designed to run through likely problems and malfunctions, most of it was geared toward running the training crew down their paths for problem resolution. Post-Apollo 13, "kitchen sink" simulations became part of the repertoire where crews were forced to face catastrophic failure scenarios in order to sharpen problem-solving skills and truly test familiarity with control locations, systems, and design of the vehicle. Such grueling simulations are why NASA SimSups (simulation supervisors) frequently gain a reputation for being sadists; they put the astronauts through the wringer so that if something ''does'' go totally sideways during a real mission, those astronauts have a much better chance of survival because they will remain more calm, have more confidence, and better know what systems can be called upon to solve the problem.[[/note]]

* The film ''Film/{{Changeling}}'' ran into this trope. It was, in fact, based on a true story, but nobody would believe it... when it was, in fact, not exaggerated in the slightest. So writer Creator/JMichaelStraczynski added sources to the script and such, to prove it was real! Not only that, but many of the more bizarre and freaktacular parts of the serial killer's exploits were left out, as they distracted from the main story. During a DVD extra, Creator/ClintEastwood noted that if it were fiction, no one would believe it.
* ''Film/{{Elizabeth}}: The Golden Age'' depicts the Armada during Elizabeth I's reign, and makes mention of some casualties on the English side. In reality, the English didn't lose a single ship during the Armada.

* ''Film/PainAndGain'' had several {{Not Making This Up Disclaimer}}s. They actually happened although slightly differently than shown. One of the criminals grills the severed hands of their latest victims just outside their hideout, waving to their neighbors. In real life, it was a different character and it was the hands, feet, and skulls. No one saw him, but he still did it just outside their hideout. They also try to return a chainsaw after it gets jammed on the victim's hair when they try to dismember her body. It still had her hair and some skin lodged in the teeth. In real life, they returned the first chainsaw since they forgot to put oil in it and it broke. The second one got caught on the victim's hair and they said, "Fuck it," and used a hatchet. Their first victim, who miraculously survived their attempts to kill him, was actually arrested for unrelated Medicare fraud immediately after testifying in real life. This scene wasn't in the movie, likely because not even a NotMakingThisUpDisclaimer could convince people [[TheChewToy that someone had that many things happen to them]].

* In ''Film/SinginInTheRain'', Cosmo says of film star Lina Lamont: "She can't act, she can't sing, she can't dance. A triple threat." Now, who in RealLife would build a musical around a Hollywood star who couldn't sing, dance or act? That would be the producers of a musical revue titled ''Two's Company'', which opened on Broadway the same year ''Singin' in the Rain'' was released. What critics had to write about Creator/BetteDavis' leading performance resembled the movie's put-down of its fictional actress. This is also a reference to a Hollywood executive's first impression of Creator/FredAstaire: "Can't act. Can't sing. Balding. Can dance a little."

* ''Literature/MobyDick'' is one of the great classics of American literature and the grandfather of the action/suspense novel. However, it pales by comparison to the events surrounding the destruction of the whaleship ''Essex'', which inspired it. Check out its entry at [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essex_(whaleship) the other wiki]].

* The ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'' episode "No Exit" features the ghost of the United States's first documented serial killer, one H.H. Holmes. Holmes's actual exploits -- which included building a "murder hotel" whose guests sometimes didn't check out -- can be read about in Rick Geary's ''Treasury of Victorian Murder'' series and in Creator/ErikLarson's book ''The Devil in the White City''. And yes, his tomb was sealed in concrete.

* Andrew Lloyd Webber's ''Music/{{Evita}}'' is a retelling of the life of Eva Perón, a poor actress who rose to become the powerful First Lady of Argentina, and nearly Vice President, before a young death. The story ends here, possibly because what happens next — the widower president is overthrown, remarries a nightclub dancer, is elected back to power, makes ''this'' wife Vice President then dies, causing the politically ignorant nightclub dancer to become president, who then falls under the spell of a sinister mystic, she is then overthrown and the country [[UsefulNotes/TheFalklandsWar goes to war with Great Britain]] — would make for a somewhat zany epilogue.

* UsefulNotes/WorldWarII ''in general'' would make a terribly, terribly [[http://squid314.livejournal.com/275614.html implausible TV show]]. Just in general, the fact that leader of Nazi Germany was once a homeless Austrian who failed as a painter and the leader of the Soviet Union was an ex bank-robbing ex-seminarian Georgian makes it look like our timeline was written by a whack Alternate History writer.

* In the vein of the Colombian team, there was a scandal regarding GK Rene Higuita in the mid-early 1990s where he visited the recently jailed narco-terrorist Pablo Escobar in a private jail the government had built for him on the outskirts of Medellin. He was arrested for "mediating in the kidnapping negotiations of an abducted girl" and was sent to jail, where the kidnapping-related charges never came into questioning; he was rather questioned regarding his visit to Escobar. What the press didn't know, or wasn't divulged due to government intervention, [[note]]as the team was involved in a government campaign for the image of the country[[/note]] was that ''everyone'' on the squad actually visited the jail at Escobar's request and played a match in there.
* [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamal_Udeen_Al-Harith Jamal al-Harith]] was a convert to Islam from the United Kingdom, who in 2002, after travelling to Afghanistan was captured by the Taliban believing him to be a British spy. After the US military toppled the Taliban, found him imprisoned among other foreigners, they secured his release... but then they found his story of a backpacking trip to Pakistan to be implausible, and themselves held him in Guantanamo Bay for over two years. He was later released without charge when no evidence emerged that he was a security threat, and sent back to the UK along with five other British detainees. He became something of a cause celebré for human rights groups to rally around against the usage of torture by the United States government in the War on Terror, and even (unsuccessfully) sued then-US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld for the torture he received in 2004. Fast forward to a decade later, he joins the Islamic State, and in February 2017, carries out a suicide bombing at an Iraqi army base. British tabloids expressed outrage particularly over the fact that he received £1 million in compensation. Some of his relatives insist that during his imprisonment in Guantanamo, he was not a terrorist, and it was actually the difficulty he experienced in rebuilding his life from the stigma of the "terrorist" imprisonment, that pushed him toward Islamic extremism.

* In 1991, a man picked up a hitchhiker one night, only for said hitchhiker to attack him. He managed to get the man out of his car and even took a different path home to ensure he wasn't followed. Despite this, the man arrived at home to see the hitchhiker lurking around his house. He called the police, and upon entering the house, they discovered the man's mother, [[https://unsolvedmysteries.fandom.com/wiki/Dorothy_Donovan Dorothy Donovan]], murdered. The police were very skeptical of the man's story, but eventually DNA evidence led them to the hitchhiker, who said that he'd picked the house at random to find a place to sleep for the night.

* The Galil rifle is not only a knockoff of the AK, its inventor also had nearly the same last name as the inventor of the AK (Balashnikov and Kalashnikov).

* The guy who made the Galil series of AK knockoffs had a nearly identical surname to the guy who invented the AK (Balashnikov and Kalashnikov).

* UsefulNotes/NorthKorea would be considered a cliche StrawDystopia if it weren't real. It would have been invaded long ago if it weren't for its ally China, but it's also too crazy for said ally to trust it with much aid. Not to mention that the country was born from, and largely owes its failures to, a controversial political and economic ideology. If an author wrote it, people would think it was cliché author tract. Indeed, there are quite a few people who don't believe North Korea is as bad as it is, and some have even traveled there to see what's what for themselves.

* The world's most proficient sniper, UsefulNotes/SimoHayha; a.k.a. "The White Death", has over 700 confirmed kills. Yes, seven hundred. All achieved in about ''three months'' in far less than optimal conditions, which includes the lack of a scope (he never used one, as the light glinting off of a scope can reveal a sniper's position). Wiki/TheOtherWiki has more information on the guy, but needless to say, if he was fictional, this would be considered ridiculous if it was played for anything other than [[PlayedForLaughs laughs]] (unless he is a speculative fiction character with a SuperpowerLottery). His SugarWiki/MomentOfAwesome is either the time he was hit in the face with a round meant to be used against ''tanks'', got back up, and killed the one who fired it, or the time he shot ''eight'' enemy soldiers with ''one'' bullet, sending all the others [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere running for their lives]] thinking a whole squad was targeting them.

* Andrew Lloyd Webber's ''Evita'' is a retelling of the life of Eva Peron, a poor actress who rose to become the powerful First Lady of Argentina, and nearly Vice President, before a young death. The story ends here, possibly because what happens next — the widower president is overthrown, remarries a nightclub dancer, is elected back to power, makes ''this'' wife Vice President then dies, causing the politically ignorant nightclub dancer to become president, who then falls under the spell of a sinister mystic, she is then overthrown and the country goes to war with Great Britain — would make for a somewhat zany epilogue.

* ''Film/FiftyFifty'' is based on the screenwriter's own experiences with cancer in his twenties. In real life, his best friend (Seth Rogen - who essentially plays himself in the film) got the news while he was in the toilet. They left this out of the film.