Random Unbelievable Scenes From Historical Movies That Actually Happened (13 items)

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  (#2) Titanic

  • Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet, Kathy Bates, James Cameron, Bill Paxton, Ioan Gruffudd, Billy Zane, Victor Garber, David Warner, Frances Fisher, Gloria Stuart, Bernard Hill, Eric Braeden, Suzy Amis, Jonathan Hyde, Jenette Goldstein, Bernard Fox, Danny Nucci, Ewan Stewart, Nicholas Cascone, Jonathan Phillips, Jason Barry, Lewis Abernathy

  One way humans try to understand tragic events is to personalize them. The thought of hundreds or thousands of people perishing at once can seem incomprehensible. Instead, we try to process the event through the eyes of one person or a small group. 

  Audiences wept during Titanic when they saw the elderly couple holding each other in bed while the ship sank, having given up their seats on a lifeboat so others could live. It feels like a metaphor: the Titanic sinking was a chaotic and senseless tragedy, but some passengers were still brave enough to make the ultimate sacrifice so others could live. 

  But a version of this scene really did happen. The elderly couple weren't invented characters but based on real-life couple Isidor and Ida Straus. Isidor, 67, was the co-owner of Macy's department store and a former US Congressman, and he and Ida, age 63, were first-class passengers on the fateful voyage. According to their great-grandson Paul A. Kurtzman, Ida boarded a lifeboat and a ship's officer offered Isidor the chance to join her. Seeing that some women and children wouldn't get a seat on a lifeboat, Isidor declined.

  Then, instead of abandoning her husband of 40 years, Ida stepped off the lifeboat to remain with him as the ship went down. James Cameron actually filmed this moment, but didn't include it in the final cut. It's unknown if Ida and Isidor returned to their bed like the movie suggests, but everything else is accurate.
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  (#11) Goodfellas

  • Robert De Niro, Samuel L. Jackson, Joe Pesci, Ray Liotta, Paul Sorvino, Vincent Gallo, Lorraine Bracco, Al Jolson, Tobin Bell, Illeana Douglas, Debi Mazar, Frank Vincent, Vincent Pastore, Henny Youngman, Tony Sirico, Jerry Vale, Kevin Corrigan, Mike Starr, Michael Imperioli, Frank Sivero, Paul Herman, Beau Starr, Catherine Scorsese, Tony Darrow, Vito Picone, Isiah Whitlock, Jr., Charles Scorsese, Nick Vallelonga, Tony Lip, Jamie deRoy, Bob Golub, Peter Onorati, Suzanne Shepherd, Frank Pellegrino, Marianne Leone Cooper, Janis Corsair, Elaine Kagan, Margaret Smith, James Quattrochi, Frank Adonis, Billy L. Sullivan, Berlinda Tolbert, Anibal O. Lleras, Clem Caserta, Welker White, Chuck Low, Gene Canfield, Garry Pastore, Richard Goteri, Eddie Hayes, Angela Pietropinto, Victor Colicchio, John Di Benedetto, Frank DiLeo, Johnny Williams, John Ciarcia, Nancy Cassaro, Joe D'Onofrio, Margo Winkler, Vito Antuofermo, Ed Deacy, Nicole Burdette, Bo Dietl, Louis Eppolito, Joseph Bono, Peter Fain, Gina Mastrogiacomo, Stella Keitel, Dino Laudicina, Elizabeth Whitcraft, Linda Carola, George Gerard, Philip Suriano, Tony Ellis, Gaetano LoGiudice, Frank Aquilino, Gaetano Lisi, Melissa Prophet, Julie Garfield, Larry Silvestri, Frank Stellato, Ronald Maccone, Jeffrey Rollins, Katherine Wallach, Christopher Serrone, Robert Vinton, Daniela Barbosa, Susan Varon, Anthony Alessandro, Barry Squitieri, Mark Evan Jacobs, Tony Caso, Peter Hock, H. Clay Dear, Daniel P. Conte, John Manca, Steve Baker, Richard Dioguardi, Matthew T. Gitkin, Joe Gioco, Lawrence Sacco, Frank Albanese, Paul Mougey, Margaux Guerard, Spencer Bradley, Dominique DeVito, Joanna Bennett, Luke Walter, Paul McIsaac, Michael Citriniti, Manny Alfaro, Lisa Dapolito, Violet Gaynor, Gina Mattia, Joel Calandrillo, Andrew Scudiero, Irving Welzer, Steve Forleo, Debbee Hinchcliffe, Thomas E. Camuti, Alyson Jones, Russell Halley, Joel Blake, Nadine Kay, Peter Cicale, Jesse Kirtzman, Richard Mullally, Norman Barbera, Lo Nardo, Anthony Polemeni, Gayle Lewis, Michaelangelo Graziano, Thomas Lowry, Tony Conforti, Anthony Valentin, Mikey Black, Michael Calandrino, Ruby Gaynor, Fran McGee, Bob Altman, Thomas Hewson, Paula Kcira, Vito Balsamo, Mike Contessa, Edward McDonald, Adam Wandt, Erasmus C. Alfano, Edward D. Murphy, Marie Michaels, Drew Stanley, Anthony Powers

  Martin Scorsese based his 1990 classic Goodfellas on Nicholas Pileggi's 1985 mobster tell-all Wiseguy, but it's by no means a direct adaptation. Scorsese specifically changed the names of many of his main characters to acknowledge that he was also changing events and biographical details. 

  But Goodfellas isn't entirely fictional. In one memorable sequence, Tommy DeVito (Joe Pesci), who's based on real-life mob enforcer Tommy DeSimone, takes out an underling for almost no reason. In the movie, bartender Michael "Spider" Gianco (Michael Imperioli) forgets to bring Tommy a drink, so Tommy humiliates him by ordering him to dance and shooting him in the foot. A few weeks later, Tommy makes fun of Spider's heavily bandaged foot, but this time Spider stands up for himself. When the rest of the crew laughs, an enraged Tommy whacks Spider. 

  It might seem like this sequence was invented to show just how brutal and merciless someone like Tommy DeSimone was, but mobster Henry Hill - who's the subject of Pileggi's book and the inspiration for Ray Liotta's character - told Howard Stern in a 2002 interview that the event pretty much happened like the movie said it did.

  DeSimone really did antagonize and wound Spider over a forgotten drink, and really did take him out when Spider talked back. (Although DeSimone shot Spider in the thigh, not the foot, and there was no mention of dancing.) According to Hill, it was the Spider incident that made him finally realize DeSimone was a true psychopath.
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  (#9) Braveheart

  • Mel Gibson, Sophie Marceau, Brendan Gleeson, Brian Cox, Catherine McCormack, Patrick McGoohan, Tommy Flanagan, 피터 뮬란, James Cosmo, Angus Macfadyen, Alun Armstrong, Gerard McSorley, Alex Norton, David O'Hara, Ian Bannen, Michael Byrne, Rupert Vansittart, Bernard Horsfall, Rana Morrison, John Kavanagh, Sean Lawlor, David McKay, Seán McGinley, Stephen Billington, Niall O'Brien, Tam White, Julie Austin, Ralph Riach, Malcolm Tierney, Donal Gibson, Barry McGovern, Richard Leaf, Peter Hanly, Gerda Stevenson, Jer O'Leary, William Scott-Masson, James Robinson, David Gant, Jimmy Keogh, Liam Carney, Jimmy Chisholm, Derek Pykett, John Murtagh, Greg Jeloudov, Martin Dunne, Mal Whyte, Joe Savino, Paul Tucker, Bill Murdoch, Declan Geraghty, Alan Tall, Martin Murphy, Robert Paterson, Andrew Weir, Mhairi Calvey, Sandy Nelson, Daniel Coll, John Burns, Dean Lopata, Martin Dempsey, Jeanne Marine, Joanne Bett, Phil Kelly, Fred Chiverton

  Braveheart is so full of inaccuracies that calling it a "historical film" is generous. The depiction of William Wallace's execution also wasn't entirely faithful to the details, but mostly because it was even more grisly than the movie suggests. 

  In Braveheart, William Wallace is sentenced to public execution unless he admits to treason against the king. The film doesn't specify what his exact punishment is going to be, probably to build suspense, but the real William Wallace was sentenced to be hanged, disemboweled, beheaded, and quartered, and that is indeed what happened. 

  Showing every last detail of these events would probably have meant an NC-17 rating for the film. Braveheart may not be 100% historically accurate, but the ending definitely gets the point across that Wallace met a terrible fate.
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  (#7) Casino

  • Sharon Stone, Robert De Niro, James Woods, Joe Pesci, Don Rickles, Kevin Pollak, Steve Allen, Frankie Avalon, Alan King, Frank Vincent, Jerry Vale, Richard Riehle, Steve Schirripa, Dick Smothers, Jayne Meadows, Paul Herman, L. Q. Jones, Catherine Scorsese, Charles Scorsese, Bob Pepper, Oscar Goodman, Carl Ciarfalio, Tommy DeVito, Vinny Vella, Frank Adonis, Phillip V. Caruso, Alfonso Gomez-Rejon, Joe Bob Briggs, Clem Caserta, Nobu Matsuhisa, Anthony Russell, Frankie J. Allison, Pasquale Cajano, Roy Conrad, Joseph Rigano, Stuart Nisbet, Jed Mills, Brian Reddy, Cameron Milzer, Cathy Scorsese, Tyde Kierney, Jeff Corbin, Craig Vincent, Walter Ludwig, Joseph P. Reidy, Joseph Bono, Randy Sutton, Nick Mazzola, Gene Ruffini, Philip Suriano, Joey de Pinto, Sly Smith, Loren Stevens, Jack Orend, Andrea Nittoli, Sonny D'Angelo, Melissa Prophet, Joe La Due, Ruth Gillis, Ronald Maccone, David Varriale, Millicent Sheridan, Claudia Haro, Greg Anderson, Mitch Kolpan, Dave Courvoisier, Linda Perri, David Rose, Bill Allison, Andy Jarrell, Frank Washko Jr., Daniel P. Conte, Brian Le Baron, Erika von Tagen, John Manca, Dean Casper, Toru Nagai, Joe Lacoco, Christian A. Azzinaro, Rudy Guerrero, Darla House, Steve Vignari, Haven Earle Haley, Alfred Nittoli, Constance Tillotson, Richard T. Smith, Eric Randall, Delynn Gardner, Charlene Hunter, Joe Anastasi, Joe Molinaro, Carol Krolick, Karyn Amalfitano, Frank Regich, Jed L. Hansen, Robert C. Tetzlaff, Gino Bertin, Salvatore Petrillo, Patti James, Jim Morgan Williams, Jeff Burbank, Richard F. Strafella, Ali Pirouzkar, Mortiki Yerushalmi, Sasha Semenoff, Leain Vashon, Carrie Cipollini, Carol Wilson, Mike Weatherford, Larry E. Nadler, Robert B. Sidell, Paige Novodor, Mufid M. Khoury, Peter Conti, Rick Crachy, Earl Chaney, Mike Maines, Michael Paskevich, Mike Bradley, Dominick Grieco, Ffolliott Le Coque, George W. Allf, Carol Cardwell, Shellee Renee, Casper Molee, Khosrow Abrishami, Buck Stephens, Richard Wagner, Jennifer M. Abbott, F. Marcus Casper, Janet Denti, Max Raven, Heidi Keller, C.C. Carr, George Comando, Jeffery Azzinaro, Csaba Maczala, Fred Smith, Dom Angelo, David Leavitt, David Arcerio, Peter Sugden, Richard Amalfitano, Gary C. Rainey, Michael McKensie Pratt, Jonathan Kraft, Paul Dottore, Nan Brennan, J. Charles Thompson, Bobby Hitt, Michael Toney, Bobbie Paulson, Gwen Castaldi, Jeff Scott Anderson, Gil Dova, Herb Schwartz, Sam Wilson

  Here's one that most of us hope is fictional, but did actually happen. 

  Like Goodfellas, Martin Scorsese's 1995 mobster classic Casino is based on a book by Nicholas Pileggi (Casino: Love and Honor in Las Vegas), and Scorsese again based his characters on real people with changed names. Like Goodfellas, some of the events of Casino are fictional while others are real.

  In the movie, Joe Pesci plays Nicky Santoro, a violent mob enforcer whose full brutality is revealed when he has to interrogate a hitman named Tony Dogs. Tony Dogs has recently shot up a Vegas mob bar and slain three people, including a cocktail server. Santoro wants to know if Tony Dogs worked alone, and when Tony Dogs insults him, Santoro puts his head in a vise. Tony Dogs still refuses to confess as the vise tightens, and finally his eyeball pops out. 

  Although the circumstances were different, a version of the infamous "head in a vise" scene really did happen in real life. Nicky Santoro is based on real-life mobster Anthony John “Ant” Spilotro. 

  As far as we know, Spilotro didn't torture anyone named Tony Dogs in Vegas in the 1970s, but he did use a vise on a mobster a decade earlier in Chicago. In 1962, a mobster named Billy McCarthy took out two mob-affiliated brothers, Ron and Phil Scalvo, and Spilotro and some associates interrogated him. How Spilotro dealt with McCarthy is arguably even more brutal than what happened in Casino.

  Without going into too much detail, suffice it to say McCarthy also lost an eye, as well as his life.
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  (#6) American Sniper

  • Bradley Cooper, Sienna Miller, Jonathan Groff, Kyle Gallner, Leonard Roberts, Marnette Patterson, Jake McDorman, Billy Miller, Sammy Sheik, Keir O'Donnell, Cory Hardrict, Tim Griffin, Brando Eaton, Luke Grimes, James Ryen, Eric Ladin, Reynaldo Gallegos, Benjamin Mathes, Ben Reed, Luis Jose Lopez, Evan Gamble, Jason Hall, Brandon Salgado Telis, Troy Vincent, John Kawalski, Elise Robertson

  The real-life Chris Kyle is known to have exaggerated his military record in his autobiography American Sniper, and Clint Eastwood's movie based on his book does change and exaggerate real events for storytelling purposes. But the Navy SEAL sniper really did manage to take out an enemy from more than a mile away.

  In the movie version, the enemy in question is a sniper and former Syrian Olympic sharpshooter named Mustafa, who menaces coalition troops and Iraqi police officers across Iraq. Mustafa has already slain one of Kyle's friends, Ryan "Biggles" Job. Toward the end of the movie, Kyle finally gets revenge by shooting Mustafa from a distance of 2,100 yards.

  Though Mustafa was a real person, he didn't take out Biggles, and his sniping career wasn't cut short by Kyle. Instead of a legendary enemy sniper, Kyle shot an enemy insurgent who was aiming a rocket launcher at American troops. This is when Kyle's 2,100-yard shot actually happened, in August 2008.

  The shot was Kyle's longest confirmed kill, but not the longest ever recorded. At the time, that would have been Rob Furlong's March 2002 shot from 2,657 yards. That record has since been broken by a Canadian sniper, who in 2017 took out an ISIS militant from 3,871 yards.
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  (#8) Walk the Line

  • Reese Witherspoon, Joaquin Phoenix, Ginnifer Goodwin, Robert Patrick, Shelby Lynne, Lucas Till, Shooter Jennings, Kerris Dorsey, Dallas Roberts, Waylon Payne, Larry Bagby, Tyler Hilton, Ridge Canipe, Hailey Anne Nelson, Sandra Ellis Lafferty, Johnathan Rice, Dan John Miller, Johnny Holiday, Dan Beene, Clay Steakley, Delaney Keefe, Victoria Hester, McGhee Monteith, Brittany Shaw

  Walk the Line tells the life story of country star Johnny Cash and his relationship with his wife and longtime singing partner, June Carter Cash. The movie definitely has its inaccuracies, but when it came to the moment when Johnny proposed to June, it didn't have to exaggerate. 

  In the movie, Johnny and June are onstage performing their hit duet "Jackson" (for which they had just won a Grammy), when Johnny stops mid-song and pops the question. June tries to get him to continue singing, and so Johnny pours his heart out about how much he loves her and how much he wants to be a better partner. She says yes. 

  It definitely seems like a Hollywood invention, but Johnny really did propose to June onstage on February 22, 1968, in London, Ontario, Canada. Just like in the movie, June tried to keep singing before she said "yes." They were married a week later in Franklin, Kentucky.

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