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Learning More About History

Celcius

°Temp. member
During the pandemic I’ve become much more interested in history than I’ve ever been before. Learning more about the influenza pandemic of 1918, the Black Plague, the history of Easter Island, old black and white pictures of people and history, ancient history like Babylon or Alexander the Great, pyramids or the Tower of Babel, US history, etc...

For those of you who are into history, what are your sources for learning more? I know Wikipedia has a lot of good info but what else is out there? Any good YouTube channels, websites, subreddits, or anything else?

What do you think are some of the most interesting events or eras throughout the history of the world?
 
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I am particularly interested in war history. Most of my knowledge comes from documentaries and books but I know the most about WW2 and Vietnam. I need to get more into medieval warfare. That shit is dope too. Fair waring for others though, it is not for the faint of heart. I did recently learn more about Japanese war crimes as they are often overlooked compared to the germans. Make no mistake though, their level of butchery, murder, and rape rival each-other. It is estimated there were roughly 6.5million dead due to war crimes commited in south east Asia. The rape of Naking is a big part of why the Chinese still hate Japan.
 

ManaByte

Gold Member
American history from colonization through reconstruction. Read it and learn it while you can. People are trying to re-write it now.
 

Scotty W

Gold Member
Will Durant wrote a series called the Story of Civilization. The first few volumes are essential reading.

It is pre-woke, but not stuffy.
 

MaestroMike

Gold Member
wish I took more history classes. gun germs and steel talked about how we domesticated animals which I thought was very interesting. there's almost a billion cows in the world. there's over 23 billion chickens. over 600 million pigs. 900 million dogs. Around 600 million cats. 1 billion sheep in the world.
 

J-Roderton

Member
I’ve been reading a lot about WW2 and The Third Reich this year during lockdown. This guys channel is awesome for that kind of stuff. I’d recommend checking it out.


Mark Felton Productions
https://youtube.com/channel/UCfCKvREB11-fxyotS1ONgww

Wikipedia has been a good supplement as well I guess.

I’ve added so many books to my collection this year I’m sort of running out of room for them.
 
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For those interested in more mechanized warfare, look no further then this channel. Visiting this place is on my bucket list.

For beginners, here is arguably the most famous tank of WW2 and possibly the world. Tiger 131. It is also the ONLY fully operational Tiger tank in the world. Most people don't understand how rare this tank was. No more than 1,500 were built by the Germans in the entire war. Fun fact, this tank was used in the movie Fury as well.


 
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Senua

Member
Nice picks! I also recommend these:


I mean you could watch that, or behold the GOAT

images
 

#Phonepunk#

Banned
Yeah I love reading about history and medieval history is my favorite. Got books on the Black Plague, the daily life, the Peasants Revolts, and Illuminated Manuscripts. You can actually order some nice reproductions of Illuminated Manuscripts and I’ve blown some money that way.

Modern publishing has also made it so you can get really cheap reproductions of books that are hundreds of years old. Lots of great lore and stuff.

History is super fascinating to me, and reading real books is the best way to learn. YouTube vids are nice for an overview but nothing beats a well researched deep dive.
 

Prison Mike

Banned
Vikings love it but also watch alot of world war stuff man i swear the snowflake era would be fucked in those trenches.
 

Ballthyrm

Member
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Youtube

If you have a LOT of time I would recommend the Great War and World War Two channels.
Both do a week by week analysis of the world wars and have a ton of amazing side content, like biographies and tactics/hardware breakdown.
Indy Neidell is an amazing host and I don't regret the time I spent watching both channels.

In the same vein, he also does another channel called time ghost where his team go over less well known conflict and the in between of the 2 worlds wars

If you want really ancient history, PBS eons is a great source.

if you want some more popular history, History Buff does a great job at breaking down everything that's wrong with Hollywood movies.
He takes the excuse of a particular movie context to tell you about the real thing that happen at the time and provide context wherever possible.
A really good channel to get started.

Vintage space does a fantastic job of going over all the development of the space Age. It gives a really picture of the beginning of Nasa and other such institutions.

Another great channel is the History Guy, he mainly specialize in really cool people that were a little forgotten by history but deserve to be remembered.
Some of the best stories I know I learn from this channel, good stuff.
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Podcast

If you have to only remember on thing from this post is that you need to listen to Hardcore History by Dan Carlin.
He is the best person I know that paint a vivid picture of what it was to live at the certain place or certain time he is talking about.
He sure takes his time to release new episodes but they are made to last and deserve to be re listened to, once in a while.

Another podcast I started to listen to not too long ago is "Fall of Civilizations"
It is a podcast that goes over what lead to the downfall of famous civilizations and what we can learn from them.
There is a surprising big number of them and each episode has really good production value.

If you are looking for something with more imagery when listening to a podcast I recommend Tides of history
You learn history through the lenses of composite character, sound effect and other method to really put you in the time period covered.
There is a lot of different subject and the last season they have been covering the Paleolithic world and the early Humans !

If you are looking for the big brash and colorful characters of history, I would recommend History on Fire.
It made by an Italian history professor and goes over the various Punk rocker and other troublemaker throughout history that left a mark.

The last but not least podcast I would recommence is called Revolutions, and it's about you've guessed it, all the most important revolutions that happened throughout history.
It goes extensively over the Russian and French revolutions (and much more), explain all the various factions and idea that lead them.
It goes on and on and leave you in the end wanting more .

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Celcius Celcius , I think if you go through all of that, we can talk in 4-5 years, have fun !​

 
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DragoonKain

Neighbours from Hell
I watch as many documentaries as I can, because I like the footage they dig up that puts things into perspective. And just googling what I can and reading as many books as I can.
 

down 2 orth

Member
I've said it here before and I know I'll keep saying it. Read the Cambridge History books if you want to have a good (and enjoyable) understanding of history. The authors are almost always non-Marxist, and are at the top of the field. And they have Cambridge books on every major country/topic. Get them for free at http://gen.lib.rus.ec (website with no trackers, sign in or any other BS).
 
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