# Real-life events that seem fictional

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/real-life-events-that-seem-fictional/766184>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [September 17, 2016, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/real-life-events-that-seem-fictional/766184 "2016-09-17T18:49:44Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 4

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**Author:** ![Waltzes\_with\_Cacti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/90ced4/32.png) [@Waltzes\_with\_Cacti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Waltzes_with_Cacti)\
**Post date:** [September 21, 2016, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/real-life-events-that-seem-fictional/766184/61 "2016-09-21T17:01:03Z")

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I’m going with the abdication of Edward VIII. It’s true that his downfall was predicted by his father, George V, who famously said, “When I am gone, the boy will ruin himself within a year.” But who would have, who _could_ have predicted that the cause of the golden Prince’s ruination would be a homely, angular, American social climber with two ex-husbands? It’s a tale from a bad Ruritanian novel.

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**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\
**Post date:** [September 21, 2016, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/real-life-events-that-seem-fictional/766184/62 "2016-09-21T23:59:16Z")

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> [@billfish678](#):
>
> The Mutiny on the Bounty. Captian and other officers/suck ups left in a ROWBOAT in the middle of the ocean. Captian and crew row thousand of miles, find shelter, eventually get back to England and the next year the Captain hunts down all those scally wags that screwed him over.

Aye, Captain Bligh was a bad-ass!

What seems like fiction to me, after seeing the footage, is that _anyone_ survived the Hindenburg disaster. But there they are, running out of burning, twisted metal.

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**Author:** ![Tzigone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Tzigone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tzigone)\
**Post date:** [September 22, 2016, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/real-life-events-that-seem-fictional/766184/63 "2016-09-22T00:16:04Z")

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Christopher Columbus “discovering” the Americas. Guy massively underestimates circumference of the planet, and sails off into the middle of nowhere. Instead of huge failure, he’s taught as great explorer in history books because he stumbles across a conveniently placed landmass. I’ve heard it put “in any well-written fiction, they would have starved to death” but it’s more accurate to say we accept those serendipitous events in fiction, even as we call them unrealistic.

And for a very movie-of-the-week tone, how about [MTS Oceanos](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MTS_Oceanos) - crew abandons cruise ship, without even raising an alarm. Entertainment staff then use radio to SOS and then they organize the orderly evacuation of passengers. Nobody dies. Very feel-good.

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