10 Period-Drama Details That Look Fake but Are Historically Accurate

Historical dramas are filled with compromises. Timelines are compressed, conversations are invented, and inconvenient facts disappear whenever they interfere with a satisfying ending. As a result, viewers learn to be suspicious whenever something on-screen seems especially strange.

Sometimes, however, the detail that looks like a writer’s bizarre invention is one of the truest things in the production. Viking warriors modified their teeth. Georgian landowners hid their private lives behind elaborate codes. Premature babies were once displayed beside amusement-park attractions, while Scottish women used a particularly pungent ingredient to process wool.

The following movies and television series did not get everything right. Some took enormous liberties with their characters and stories. Yet each included at least one peculiar detail supported by historical records, surviving objects, or archaeological evidence.

Warning: Minor spoilers appear throughout the list.

Related: 10 Films That Were Praised but Got History Wrong

10 The Northman—Some Vikings Filed Grooves into Their Teeth

Near the end of The Northman (2022), Prince Amleth sees a Valkyrie carrying him toward the afterlife. Something about the warrior maiden’s smile looks strangely modern. Dark horizontal lines cross her front teeth, briefly giving the impression that she is wearing braces.

The markings were intentional. Archaeologists have discovered Viking Age skeletons whose front teeth contain carefully filed horizontal grooves. An early study identified the modification in 24 men from sites in Sweden and Denmark, while later discoveries expanded the number of known examples. Creating the grooves would have required considerable control and probably caused an unpleasant amount of pain.

Nobody knows precisely what the markings meant. They may have indicated membership in a particular group, represented social status, or simply served as decoration. Another theory proposes that the grooves held colored pigment, making them far more noticeable whenever their owner smiled—or snarled.

Director Robert Eggers chose black for the Valkyrie’s markings, although he acknowledged that the historical color remains unknown. The resulting image may resemble modern orthodontics, but archaeological evidence supports the underlying practice. Apparently, some Viking Age men were willing to endure dentistry without anesthetic simply to ensure that nobody forgot their smile.^[1]

9 Gentleman Jack—Anne Lister Really Wrote Her Love Life in Code

In Gentleman Jack (2019–2022), landowner Anne Lister records her business dealings, travels, arguments, and romantic relationships with women in an enormous diary. Whenever the material becomes especially private, she switches to a secret code filled with unfamiliar symbols.

The code was not invented to give the television series an air of mystery. The real Lister kept one of the most extensive personal journals in British history. Her surviving diaries contain approximately four to five million words, depending on how they are counted, and cover much of her life between 1806 and 1840.

Roughly one-sixth of the material was written in what Lister called her “crypthand.” The code combined Greek letters with symbols drawn from mathematics, punctuation, and the zodiac. She used it to conceal accounts of her relationships, physical intimacy, health, and other subjects she did not want casual readers to understand.

The diaries were eventually decoded by a descendant and his friend during the 1890s. According to a later account, one of the men recommended burning them because of their contents. Fortunately, that advice was ignored.

Series creator Sally Wainwright used the diaries as the foundation for Gentleman Jack, sometimes drawing dialogue and Anne’s knowing glances toward the audience from Lister’s own words. The television character seems unusually candid because her real counterpart privately documented almost everything.^[2]

8 Boardwalk Empire—Premature Babies Were Displayed as an Attraction

The Atlantic City boardwalk recreated in Boardwalk Empire (2010–2014) offers alcohol, gambling, sideshows, and an attraction that seems too tasteless even for the show’s collection of gangsters and crooked politicians. Visitors can pay to look at premature babies being cared for inside incubators.

Such exhibitions really existed. During the early twentieth century, Martin Couney displayed premature infants at amusement parks and international expositions. His best-known facility operated at Coney Island, although he also established an exhibit on the Atlantic City boardwalk.

The babies were not props, and the nurses caring for them were not carnival performers. Hospitals routinely offered little specialized treatment for premature infants, but Couney’s facilities maintained strict procedures, employed trained nurses, and used incubators to regulate temperature. Parents were not charged for the care. Admission fees from curious spectators paid the bills.

Couney’s medical qualifications were questionable—despite being called “Doctor,” no evidence has ever been found that he completed medical training. His methods nevertheless helped demonstrate that premature babies could survive with specialized attention. He operated his Coney Island exhibit for decades, until hospitals finally began establishing their own neonatal units.

The sight of infants displayed near amusement rides remains unsettling. Yet behind the sideshow presentation was a working medical facility providing care that many hospitals had refused to offer. In this case, the attraction that looks most like Boardwalk Empire excess may have saved thousands of lives.^[3]

7 Outlander—Urine Really Was Used to Process Wool

While traveling through the Scottish Highlands in the first season of Outlander (2014–present), Claire encounters a group of women singing as they rhythmically slap wet wool against a table. She soon discovers that the liquid soaking the cloth contains urine.

The scene provides an amusing reminder that time travel involved smells as well as scenery. However, the women are performing a genuine stage of textile production known as waulking. Newly woven wool had to be cleaned, softened, shrunk, and thickened. Repeated pounding and turning the wet fabric encouraged its fibers to bind together, creating warmer, more water-resistant cloth.

The work was often performed communally by women, who sang waulking songs to maintain a steady rhythm. Different verses could be added for as long as the job required, but repeating a verse was traditionally considered bad luck.

Urine supplied an additional cleaning agent. After being stored, it produced ammonia that helped remove natural oils and other impurities from the wool. The finished fabric was rinsed, so Highlanders weren’t expected to walk around indefinitely smelling like the contents of the waulking tub.

Modern demonstrations generally omit the most authentic ingredient for obvious reasons. Nevertheless, the scene captures a real domestic process that continued by hand in parts of Scotland long after mechanized fulling mills appeared elsewhere. Claire’s discomfort is understandable, but the women inviting her to join them knew exactly what they were doing.^[4]

6 The Knick—Doctors Really Pulled Teeth to Treat Mental Illness

In the first-season finale of The Knick (2014–2015), Eleanor Gallinger returns from treatment at a psychiatric hospital without any teeth. Her doctor believes that hidden infections in her mouth caused her mental illness, making the extractions a supposedly scientific cure.

The treatment was based on the work of Dr. Henry Cotton, superintendent of New Jersey’s Trenton State Hospital from 1907 until 1930. Cotton embraced the theory that infections elsewhere in the body released toxins responsible for psychiatric disorders. He began by removing patients’ teeth and tonsils. When their conditions did not improve, he sometimes proceeded to remove parts of their stomachs, colons, reproductive organs, and other body parts.

Cotton claimed that his operations produced remarkable cure rates, earning praise from prominent physicians and attracting patients from wealthy families. Investigations told a different story. His statistics relied on extremely generous definitions of recovery, while he minimized or omitted deaths associated with the procedures. A later medical assessment placed the mortality rate at approximately 30 percent.

Even Cotton was not entirely safe from his own theory. He reportedly had several of his teeth removed after developing heart problems.

The storyline in The Knick is horrifying because it violates everything expected of medical care. Unfortunately, that is also what makes it historically convincing. The doctor mutilating Eleanor is not practicing fictional mad science. He is following a treatment once promoted as modern psychiatry.^[5]

5 Rome—Ancient Cities Really Were Covered in Graffiti

The opening credits of Rome (2005–2007) transform drawings on the city’s walls into animated scenes of sex, violence, religion, and politics. Similar markings appear throughout the series, making the capital look as though nobody could pass a blank surface without adding an insult or advertisement.

Although the production created the specific artwork, its cluttered appearance reflects Roman urban life. More than 11,000 examples of graffiti have been documented at Pompeii alone. Some were carefully painted by professionals, while others were scratched into plaster by residents with time to spare and opinions to share.

Political candidates covered buildings with campaign messages. Businesses advertised their services, friends recorded greetings, and dissatisfied customers posted complaints. People celebrated romantic conquests, mocked their enemies, praised gladiators, and occasionally wrote the ancient equivalent of “I was here.” Drawings ranged from ships and animals to images that would still earn disciplinary action in a modern school.

The surviving messages also challenge the assumption that only wealthy Roman men were literate. Women, laborers, soldiers, enslaved people, and shopkeepers all appear to have participated.

Most ancient walls lost their decoration through rebuilding and weather. Pompeii’s sudden burial preserved an unusually large collection, revealing a city every bit as argumentative and easily distracted as a modern one. Rome may exaggerate how much is visible on each street, but Romans really did turn their walls into social media.^[6]

4 The Gilded Age—New York’s Rich Built an Opera House out of Spite

The second season of The Gilded Age (2022–present) revolves around a conflict that sounds almost too petty to support an entire television storyline. After Bertha Russell is denied a box at New York’s Academy of Music, she supports a rival opera house and turns opening night into a battle for control of high society.

Bertha is fictional, but the “Opera War” was real. During the late nineteenth century, a box at the Academy of Music was more than an expensive place to hear singers. It publicly declared that its occupants belonged to New York’s social elite.

The Academy had a limited number of boxes, and old-money families were unwilling to surrender them to industrialists whose fortunes had arrived more recently. Rather than accept exclusion, members of the new-money class financed their own theater. The Metropolitan Opera House was built partly because wealthy families who could afford almost anything could not purchase acceptance at the Academy.

The original Met opened at Broadway and 39th Street on October 22, 1883, with a performance of Charles Gounod’s Faust. Its private boxes formed a highly visible “golden horseshoe,” allowing their owners to observe one another nearly as closely as they watched the stage.

The fictional Russells therefore behave much like many real Gilded Age millionaires. When the old establishment refused to give them seats, they built a larger establishment and made the old one obsolete.^[7]

3 A League of Their Own—Players Really Had to Attend Charm School

One of the funniest sequences in A League of Their Own (1992) sends the new players through charm school. The women are taught how to sit, walk, dress, apply makeup, and drink without slurping. The scene feels like an exaggerated joke about 1940s expectations, especially when paired with the players’ obvious athletic ability.

The real All-American Girls Professional Baseball League imposed remarkably similar requirements. Established in 1943, the league needed talented players, but its organizers also worried that women playing professional baseball would be considered unfeminine.

After practicing during spring training, players attended evening classes conducted by representatives from Helena Rubinstein’s beauty salon. They learned about etiquette, personal hygiene, clothing, posture, and makeup. Each woman received a beauty kit containing such necessities as cleansing cream, lipstick, rouge, face powder, deodorant, hand lotion, and hair remover.

League rules continued beyond the classroom. Players were expected to appear presentable in public, follow curfews, and avoid smoking or drinking. Slacks were prohibited as street clothing. On the field, they wore short, flared tunics over satin shorts. Sliding in those uniforms frequently left painful abrasions known as “strawberries.”

The charm-school sequence was therefore not invented merely to humiliate the fictional Rockford Peaches. The real players were expected to compete like elite athletes while maintaining a carefully managed public image. Apparently, stealing home was acceptable as long as the runner remembered her lipstick.^[8]

2 Marie Antoinette—Royal Childbirth Really Required an Audience

In Marie Antoinette (2022–present), the queen’s first delivery is not treated as a private medical event. Courtiers crowd nearby, waiting to discover whether she has produced the male heir France expects. The arrangement looks unnecessarily cruel, even by the standards of royal life.

However, giving birth was part of a queen’s public duty. The child might someday inherit a kingdom, making proof of the baby’s identity, sex, and legitimate birth a matter of state. Authorized witnesses were present to prevent later claims that a dead infant had been replaced or that a daughter had been secretly exchanged for a son.

Descriptions of royal births as completely “public” can be misleading. The queen did not ordinarily deliver before every courtier who could force a path into the palace. At Versailles, the king, senior royal women, medical attendants, and selected officials might enter the bedchamber, while others waited in adjoining rooms for news. Even this more limited arrangement left the mother with little control over who observed her most vulnerable moments.

The Queen’s Bedchamber at Versailles was specifically used for these deliveries. Nineteen royal children were born there, including future kings Louis XV and Louis XVI.

The television crowd may heighten the claustrophobia, but the loss of privacy is real. A queen could possess jewels, servants, and several palaces while still being denied something now routinely offered by a hospital curtain.^[9]

1 Titanic—The Man Drinking at the Stern Really Survived

As the stern rises during the final minutes of Titanic (1997), Jack and Rose cling to the railing beside a nervous man in a white uniform. He takes a drink from a flask while the ship becomes nearly vertical, then disappears into the ocean with them.

The easily overlooked character was Charles Joughin, the Titanic‘s chief baker. His presence at the stern—and even the drink—came from Joughin’s extraordinary account of the disaster.

After helping load lifeboats, Joughin ordered members of the bakery staff to carry bread onto the deck for the evacuees. Once the boats had departed, he began throwing deck chairs overboard so people in the water would have something to hold. He also returned to his cabin and admitted having “a drop of liqueur.”

Joughin eventually climbed onto the outside of the stern railing. During the British inquiry, he claimed that when the ship disappeared, he entered the water without his head being pulled beneath the surface. Wearing a lifebelt, he paddled and treaded water until he reached an overturned collapsible boat. He estimated that he remained in the water for more than two hours before entering a lifeboat—although survivor estimates made during the confusion were not always reliable.

Alcohol would not have protected Joughin from hypothermia and may have made exposure more dangerous. His survival was more likely due to his lifebelt, swimming ability, calm water, and considerable luck. Nevertheless, the baker calmly drinking as the stern rose was not invented comic relief. He was one of the last people to leave the real ship alive.^[10]