I don't know anything about history. How do I begin to learn it...

I don't know anything about history. How do I begin to learn it? Do I just start from the beginning of history and work my way to the present?

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bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00w0bl0/episodes/guide
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get a really basic picture of the eras of history and from like wikipedia summaries then go into an area that interests you

Just start with whatever youre interested in op. Its not like knowing history has any practical value anyways

Yes, that is generally a good idea. Form a simplistic, basic comprehension of the world's history and humanity, especially from the birth of civilization forward, then after that just delve into whatever you find interesting.

what kind of fucking idiot knows absolutely nothing about history? Are you 12 or are you just actually retarded?

I've just never studied it at all. I must have learned a little in elementary school, but it's all slipped my mind now.

Are you American?

If he's American then you generally have a really, really shitty grasp of history outside of American history. In my high school (which is a highly rated high school, mind you) European history was completely optional and we had no courses on Antiquity or anywhere outside Europe

>we had no courses on Antiquity
Fucking Christ. USA was a mistake.

Yes.

In my high school you had a choice between History and Geography and I choice geography (and now forget everything in that class).

I lied actually, we had a "world civ course" which had a three day unit on antiquity

>In my high school you had a choice between History and Geography
You sure you're not from some pisspoor African backwater nation? Did you mistake Liberia for Detroit or something?

Heres the outline. Very rough. Correct any errors guys.


First civilizations were cities like Uruk in mesopotamia. Hunter gatherer tribes realized they could produce more food if they farmed than if they hunted an gathered.

Then later similar systems popped up in the indus rivet valley and in china, but we can just ignorr that shit.

After a millenia or two of Mesopotamian civilization europeans came and killed everyone. Also iron weapons.

Then the greeks invented how to think

Then then the romans killed them and invented law

Then jesus came and told everybody to ditch all their shit and stop killing people

Then germans came and killed the romans

Then muslims killed the other romans

The italians rememberered how to think

Then europeans (accidentally) killed all the people in america

Then europeans dicked around killing everybody some more while america chilled

Then europeans got so good at killing people that they decided to kill eachother. They had to try twice

After europeans were pretty close to killing eachother USA stepped in and stopped them

Now USA is hegemoney

Thats pretty much the gist of it
Now go study STEM

ww2

oregany

>Hunter gatherer tribes realized they could produce more food if they farmed than if they hunted an gathered.
Early farmers lived far worse lives than hunter gatherers. Agriculture occured mainly out of necessity, after population sizes grew too large to be sustained by the ever smaller amounts of prey. At the same time, agriculture allowed and even forced specialization into different labours, since between planting and harvest, there's only so much you can do and in the end, over time, there would be enough produce for everyone, including the craftsmen, smiths, hunters, traders, lawmen and so forth.

bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00w0bl0/episodes/guide

This series is great op. It will give you a reaaly great outline of the first 10,000 years of western history, which we really dont know much about. After greece rome things start getting more detailed and clear to us.

I feel like primary sources only really survive in 2000 year intervals. Herodotus was able to investigate 2000 years prior to him, but almost all of what we know if from sources 2000 years ago talking about their sources from 2000 years ago.

Seems like a cool show. Thanks, user.

I said it was a summary nagger.

Theyre lives were worse under god king assyrian rulers, yes. But they were still able to eat more calories, otherwise society wouldn't have been able to spare the extra people to make specialists in the first place

Can confirm, I met some Americans on my trip to Egypt last month.
Their theory of why Islam was the dominant religion was literally "the Ottawa empire"

It's the same in a lot of European schools too you dolt
t. yuro

Lol. We should honestly just change our calendar to start in 1776. Maybe a trump Executive Order?

>I said it was a summary nagger.
You told us to correct errors, nigger.
>But they were still able to eat more calories, otherwise society wouldn't have been able to spare the extra people to make specialists in the first place
At the point where agriculture became a necessity, yes, you are right, but hunting and gathering is the superior method for sustenance, so long as your population is small enough to not overtax the ecosystem. There's some tribes in Africa who still work around two hours a day and spend the rest of the time doing whatever. That's how effective hunting and gathering is when animals are plentiful.

Africa begins at the Pyrennees and everything East of Germany is not Europe. (Excluding Nordics)

Yes, so I'm still European then, and I was forced the same choice in secondary school
let me guess, Norwegian?

Finnish. Both geography and history are compulsory. Can't remember how many courses exactly, but most also study some of the voluntary ones. I studied four of the former and five of the latter. Why you would be made to choose between the two subjects is beyond me.

Dude im a legit neo tribalist who thinks we should abandon civilization and live inna woods again, im not disagreeing with you that that sort of life is BETTER, but farming bread yeilds greater outputbthan hunting and gathering. You implicitly admitted it in your own post

>so long as your population is small enough to not overtax the ecosystem

In other words, populations cant grow significantly under a hunter gatherer system whereas they boom so much under agriculture we destroy the entire world.

Check mate nagger

>In other words, populations cant grow significantly under a hunter gatherer system whereas they boom so much under agriculture we destroy the entire world.
It depends on the population size. Hunting and gathering is best for smaller groups, while agriculture becomes necessary after the population size grows too large. Neither is implicitly "better".

The first civilizations (I'm ignoring China and India cause I know jack shit about them) developed around river systems, particularly the Nile in Egypt and Mesopotamia in modern Iraq. Sargon, a king of Akkad (a Semitic-speaking area in north Mesopotamia) conquered Sumer to the south, which created a long-lasting cultural synthesis of Akkadians and Sumerians (Sumerian was used as a liturgical language). His state split into two, Assyria in the north and Babylonia in the south. Nothing particularly interesting happened between this divide (which happened around 2000 BC) and the rise of Persia in 550BC. There were some wars, Assyria generally being the dominant power, but the Babylonian king Hammurabi managed to conquer Assyria for a short time and create his famous law code in the 1800's BC.

The Persians were an Indo-European speaking people in modern south Iran who rose up in revolt of the Median Empire (an unimportant body) in 550 BC. Their king Cyrus managed to overthrow the Medians, conquer the Lydian kingdom (in modern day central Turkey) and eventually Babylon and Assyria, creating the first truly massive empire. His sons Cambyses and Darius would conquer Egypt and northern Greece respectively, creating the world's largest empire in terms of percentage of global population (Darius ruled over some 40% of the people in the world).

Also obviously depends on location. Agriculture is a lot more effective in Mesopotamia, than for example in Siberia, or the Nordics.

In regards to food yield farming is better, which is all those particular people in Mesopotamia 10,000 years ago cared about. Its not like they had the foresight to envision slavery and the caste system would be the results of their efforts.

That being said, there is a theory that the environment got shitty, and fucked with the status quo, forcing people to adapt to survive. Which would sort of support whatever point youre trying to make. You big lipped nagger

>The italians rememberered how to think

i lelled

>Which would sort of support whatever point youre trying to make.
I'm too tired for things like "points" or making them. I'm just rambling. You're right though.
>In regards to food yield farming is better, which is all those particular people in Mesopotamia 10,000 years ago cared about
The continuous growing season enabled by dams, channels and rivers is a distinct advantage to hunting and gathering.

Civilization in Greece started with the Minoans and the Mycenaeans but I don't know much about them and they aren't really that important. The famous Greek polis system began to develop in the 800's BC and led to a few dominant city-states, notably the economic powerhouse of Athens and the military powerhouse of Sparta. Starting around 590 BC and ending in 508 BC, Athens transitioned into a democracy. In the early 400's BC the Persian Empire tried to invade Greece twice, but were repelled both times. Athens and Sparta then turned on each other, and tensions boiled over into the Peloponnesian war from 431-404 BC. This war was a turning point in Greek politics because it marked, amongst other things, the re-entry of Persia into Greek politics. Throughout the first half of the 300's BC, the Greeks continued to fight minor wars amongst themselves while the kingdom of Macedonia (which probably didn't speak Greek natively) rose to become the dominant power in the Greek world, uniting all the Greek cities in Europe (save Sparta) in 338 BC under the King Phillip II. Phillip was assassinated in 336 BC and his son Alexander became the king of Macedonia and undertake a long-planned invasion of the Persian Empire. Alexander invaded Asia Minor, defeated the Persians, went down through Syria and Judea and conquered Egypt, then went back up across Mesopotamia to defeat the Persians again and conquer the entire empire. He continued across the Iranian Plateau and went as far as India before turning back and staying in Babylon. His death in 323 BC without an heir set the empire into a war, which ushered in the era called the Hellenistic Age, where the Greco-Macedonian culture mixed with local Persian and Egyptian culture. The main successor states of Alexander's empire were the Ptolemies in Egypt, the Seleucids in Persia and Syria, and the Antigonids in Macedonia. Minor wars continued between them, so we can now switch over to Rome.

Holy fuck did I just win an argument on Veeky Forums? Does this mean I get to leave? I've been trapped in this prison of the mind since that van exploded on fox news.

No, here's why you're wrong:
1. You're a fucking FAGGOT
2. kill yourself

This

Srsly. You might as well be asking "where should i begin to understand about japanese cartoons"

In fact, fuck you op.

According to legend, Greek soldiers under Aeneas fleeing the Trojan war fled to the site where Rome would be founded and mixed with the local Latin people (this is probably at least some level of a fabrication). The city of Rome was founded in 753 BC as a Kingdom by the twins Romulus and Remus, although Remus was killed by his brother shortly thereafter. It was a minor trading post on the Tiber river between the Etruscans to the north and Greek colonists to the south. Legend has it that the seven kings of Rome ruled between 753 and 509 BC (which is unlikely, as the length of these rules is incredibly long for the period). The supposed last king, Lucius Tarquinius Superbus, was apparently so terrible that the Roman nobles revolted, forcing him to flee to the Etruscans, and set up the oligarchic Republic. By this time Rome was slightly larger than the average city state, controlling land up to the coast of Italy, but it was a minor power compared to its surrounding states. Much of the early Republic is shrouded in shadow, as a sack of Rome in 390 BC means there are almost no surviving sources of the era. The Republic was headed by two consuls, elected yearly, who held supreme executive power. They were advised by the Senate, a collection of former consuls and other nobles who advised the consuls while holding little official power. Roman society was split into two major groups: the patricians, who were descended from the early nobility of the kingdom, and the plebeians, who were everyone else. The patricians tended to be wealthier, but this became less and less the case as time passed. Originally the consulship and the Senate were exclusive to patricians. Throughout the 400's BC Rome engaged on minor campaigns with its surroundings, with few notable changes in territory.

Shit. Thats just irrefutable.

I guess its check - and - match.

no practical value, huh?

In 390 BC the city was sacked by Gauls, a Celtic-speaking people from north of the Alps, and the plebeians used the subsequent crisis to change the constitution to open the constitution to open the consulship up to the plebs. By this time and later, the Romans had conquered all of the surrounding Latin-speaking tribes (known as the Latium). In the 340's, a region southeast of Rome known as Campania was bequeathed to Rome, and Rome fought a short war against the Samnites over it. Following this war, the non-Roman Latins revolted, initiating the Latin war which saw Roman victory and complete domination of the cities of the Latium. The Second Samnite War, the longest and most arduous, began in 327 BC over Campania. Rome suffered a humiliating defeat in 321 BC which stopped hostilities for about five years, but in 316 fighting started up again and Rome was eventually victorious and gained the land around the Samnites, but not their territory. The Third Samnite War, from 298-290 BC, ended in the complete defeat of the Samnites and the annexation of all their territory. Pyrrhus, the king of Epirus (in western Greece) decided to make a name for himself fighting the Romans and invaded Italy in 280 BC. Although he won every battle he fought, he lost the war and Rome gained control of all south Italy (which was primarily Greek colonies). In 264 Rome and Carthage (a Phoenician colony in modern Tunisia) started a long, sloppy war over the island of Sicily, which was important strategically and economically. This was the first of the three Punic wars, which would see the rise of Rome over all of the western Mediterranean. By 241 the Romans were victorious and annexed the island of Sicily.

Afterwards, Rome annexed some land in Illyria while Carthage regrouped under the leadership of a brilliant tactician Hannibal Barca. The Second Punic war started in 218 BC when Hannibal led a massive army through Iberia and over the Alps into Italy.

He utterly destroyed every Roman army he encountered and campaigned around Italy, convincing cities to revolt against Roman rule. Salvation came when the young general Cornelius Publius Scipio managed to defeat the Carthaginians in Iberia and advance an army to North Africa, forcing Hannibal to leave Italy to protect Carthage. In the battle of Zama, Scipio defeated Hannibal and ended the war, earning him the nickname "Africanus" and leaving Carthage a puppet state in 202 BC. In 198 BC Rome invaded Macedonia (who were allied with Carthage) and defeated them quickly, beginning their expansion into the Eastern Mediterranean. The Seleucids decided to fight the Romans shortly thereafter, and were soundly defeated as well. The Macedonians tried to revolt against growing Roman influence in 171 BC but were quickly defeated and divided into four small kingdoms. In the early 140's BC Rome formally annexed Carthage and Macedonia, becoming the dominant power in the Mediterranean. Around this time, civil unrest in Rome began to swell. Two grandsons of Scipio Africanus, Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus, served as plebeian tribunes and pushed through controversial laws about land reform and political changes to the constitution. Both were killed by the Senate, who were angry about these changes. An invasion of the Gauls in northern Italy in 113 created a crisis that Marius, a plebeian general, had to respond to. He reformed the military and opened it up to the masses, defeating the Gauls. In 91 BC the Italian allies of Rome rose up in revolt (known as the Social War) which Marius and his rival Sulla had to quell. In the meantime, a king of Pontus (northeast Turkey) named Mithradates began attacking Romans on the peninsula, and Sulla lead an army to defeat him by 84 BC. Another short war broke out 83 BC, but was quickly ended. Sulla returned to Rome amidst a minor civil war and was named dictator for life in 82 BC, but resigned in 80 BC.

Following his resignation, a group of three men (Julius Caesar, Pompey the Great, and Crassus, called the first triumvirate) created a power-sharing agreement to dominate the government. Mithridates revolted again in 74 BC and Pompey lead the army against him, annexing his kingdom and Syria by 64 BC. Throughout the 50's BC Caesar campaigned in Gaul (modern France and Belgium), turning the whole region into Roman provinces. Crassus tried to fight the Parthian Empire (successor state to the Seleucids) in the 60's BC but was killed in battle. Pompey and Caesar had a falling out, and a civil war ensued between 49 to 45 BC, with Caesar victorious and named dictator for life. He engaged in a series of ambitious reforms but was assassinated by the Senate in 44 BC, setting off another civil war. This time another three men (Marc Antony, Octavian, and Lepidus) formed the second triumvirate and quickly defeated Caesar's assassins. Antony and Octavian eventually fell out as well (Lepidus resigned from his position) and they fought a civil war between 32 and 30 BC. Antony fled to Egypt after his defeat, where he and the ruler of Egypt/his lover Cleopatra eventually committed suicide, and Octavian annexed Egypt and became the first Emperor of Rome. Octavian was now called "Augustus" and engaged on campaigns in Illyria and Moesia (modern Bulgaria) and reformed the administration of the Empire. He tried to invade Germania, but was defeated, ending Roman ambitions in the region. Augustus died in 14 AD, and was followed by Tiberius, Augustus's step-son. Tiberius had increasingly poor relations with the Roman senators, and eventually withdrew from the city, leaving a malicious advisor to run the Empire and commit executions of his enemies in the Senate. Tiberius died in 37 AD, and his grandnephew Caligula took over the throne. Caligula likely was mentally ill, and spent lavish sums and engaged in a long reign of terror, leading to his assassination in 41.

Following Caligula, his uncle Claudius took over the Empire and managed to bring back stability after the two previous violent reigns. He proved an able administrator, but was assassinated in 54 AD by his wife, who wanted to assure her son (Claudius's stepson) would gain the throne. Nero then ascended, who was only 16 at the time and had no interest in ruling and just wanted to throw lavish parties and play music. He became increasingly unpopular, and a general in Spain named Galba revolted, which lead Nero to commit suicide in 68. In 69, there were four emperors, with the final one being Vespasian, a Syrian general who ruled until 79 AD. He was an able administrator, although he followed unscrupulous tax policies. He was followed by his son Titus, who died two years later, who was then succeeded by his younger brother Dominitian. Dominitian was an efficient administrator but hated the Senate, who therefore vilified him and eventually assassinated him in 96 AD. Nerva, a prominent Senator, followed him for a year and a half, adopting the Spanish general Trajan as his son and successor when he died in 98 AD. His rule began the famous era of the "Five Good Emperors", which saw the maximum extent of Roman power. Trajan gave the provinces a high degree of autonomy, engaged a massive infrastructure program (initiated by Dominitian) and annexed Dacia (modern Romania) and Mesopotamia, which was the maximum extent of the Roman Empire. Trajan died in 117 BC, leaving the Empire to Hadrian, his adoptive son. Hadrian increased the influence of Greek culture in the Empire, and continued the building projects. He underwent a massive tour of the Empire, and adopted Antoninus Pius on the condition that Pius would adopt the young Marcus Aurelius. He died in that same year, leaving the Empire to Pius. Pius's reign was extremely uneventful, and he never had to leave the capital in his 23 years as Emperor.

He was succeeded by Marcus Aurelius, who had to deal with a war with the Parthians, a war with the Germans, and a massive and devastating plague. He successfully handled these problems, but left the Empire to his son Commodus in 180, which would be a massive mistake. Commodus wanted only to be a gladiator, and ruled despotically, and was eventually assassinated in 192. He was followed by a series of five emperors who ruled in 193, ending with Septimus Severus, who restored order to the Empire after the short civil war. He strengthened the Empire's defenses and died in 211, leaving his sons Geta and Caracalla as co-emperors. The two hated each other and Caracalla quickly assassinated his brother and began a violent and wasteful reign, which ended in his assassination by a disgruntled soldier. A short interlude by a man named Macrinus was followed by Elagabalus, a teenager who was a puppet for his grandmother. He ruled from 218 to 222, when he was assassinated for his complete disregard for Roman customs. He was followed by his cousin Alexander Severus, who was also dominated by his grandmother but had a peaceful and prosperous. He was assassinated by his troops in 235, starting the Crisis of the Third Century. This period, from 235 to 284, saw a quick succession of emperors who were frequently assassinated, while the borders were frequently invaded and a plague devastated the population and economy. In the 260's large portions of the Eastern and Western Empire broke off and formed their own independent polities, which were reconquered by the Emperor Aurelian in the 270's. In 284 the emperor Diocletian became the Emperor and completely remade the Empire, leaving it a much more centralized and autocratic state. He also decided to divide the Empire, first appointing his friend Maximian as a Co-emperor and eventually having both of them appoint junior emperors, creating the Tetrarchy.

Diocletian's other reforms include dividing the provinces into much smaller, more easily manageable sizes, dividing the civil and military administrations, and enforcing strict purity standards on the Imperial mints. Diocletian and Maximian abdicated in 305, leaving the Empire to their successors Constantius and Gallerius. Constantius died in 306, leaving his throne to his son Constantine. Maximian's son Maxentius revolted over not being appointed as Emperor, and between 306 and 324 a series of wars was fought, ending with Constantine gaining control over the whole Empire. He was the first Christian emperor, and promoted Christianity within the bureaucracy although it wasn't enforced as mandatory yet. Constantine founded Constantinople in 330 and used it as a strategic capital of the Eastern Empire. He died in 337, dividing the Empire between his sons. After a brief civil war, Constans became the emperor of the West and Constantius II became the emperor in the East. Constans was assassinated in 350, and Constantius was ruler of the whole empire until his death in 361. He elevated his cousin Julian as a Caesar and let him campaign in Gaul while Constantius ruled in the East. Julian was proclaimed emperor by his soldiers and was on the brink of civil war, but Constantius died before they could fight, leaving Julian as the sole emperor. Julian was the last pagan emperor and tried to revive the ancient Roman religion, but died in 363 before his reforms took root. He pursued an ill-fated campaign against the Sassanids (successors of the Parthians) and died after a failed siege of Ctesiphon, the capital. His general Jovian followed him and led the army out of Persia but died 8 months into his reign in 364. The empire was then divided in two between the brothers Valentinian (in the West) and Valens (in the East), who ruled until 375 and 378 respectively.

This user is fucking determined holy shit.
Not OP, but I appreciate you writing this stuff, lad.

A good way to dip your toe in is to play Crusader Kings 2, Total War games etc.

The Jews are the cause of all problems ever, there you go

Stop repeating this bullshit nothing about these games is historical they are sandbox games and do not represent anything that actually happend.

Games do not teach you anything about history.

i learned ancient geography from Rome Total War

>ancient geography

You mean geography?

How about just look at a map, ok nvm

We were talking about history and since the player and the ai do random stuff you don't learn anything except some scripted events.

Games are fine and there is nothing wrong with playing them or fuel the history boner but they don't teach you anything relevant.

Ooh look how I murdered "generated name that I forget 10sec later", oh look I just took "xyz city from the ai with stupid hammer anvil tactic" whow now I am a historian.

^ literally you

Basically this.

Well done Veeky Forums I'm proud of you

Paradox games help you see history on a large, general scale, and are what got me into history to begin with.

Valentinian campaigned against Germans who had invaded Gaul and Valens stabilized the East after Julian's campaign. Valentinian was succeeded after a massive stoke by his son Valentinian II, who was dominated by his mother and an influential bishop in Milan while dealing with revolts in Britain and northern Gaul. A group of Germanic warriors called the Goths invaded the Eastern Empire in 376, and Valens led an army against them in 378. Valens died in this battle and was succeeded by Theodosius, who managed to end the war with the Goths diplomatically and managed to end the revolt in 388. Valentinian II was murdered in 392 and a usurper claimed the throne, which Theodosius claimed for himself and managed to end the revolt in 394, leaving him as the sole emperor. He would be the last man to rule of the entire empire. He died in 395, leaving the empire to his two young sons Arcadius in the East and Honorius in the West. Both were young at the time and are both reported to have been pretty stupid, but no matter what it was about both ruled for a pretty long time and were dominated by advisors or family members. A Vandal general named Stilicho dominated Honorius's court and dealt with rebellions and an invasion by the Goths under their king Alaric, along with a massive invasion of a bunch of Germanic tribes on New Year's Eve of 406. Stilicho was unable to defeat a rebellion in Northern Gaul as a result and fell out of favor with Honorius's court and was executed in 408. In the East, Arcadius died in 408 and was followed by his son Theodosius II, in whose name the Theodosian walls were constructed shortly thereafter. In 410 Alaric, the king of the Visigoths, sacked Rome for the first time in exactly 800 years; the capital had long since been moved around (it was in Ravenna at this point), but it was still a shocking development. Honorius got another general, Constantius III, to put down the revolt in Gaul and other Goth attacks.

The Goths were settled in Aquitaine, while the Franks were given more control over northern Gaul. Constantius III eventually married Galla Placidia, the Emperor's sister and the son they had together would become Valentinian III, the next emperor. Constantius was elevated to co-emperor in 421 but died a few months later, with Honorius dying in 423. A usurper tried to claim the throne, but Theodosius II in the East managed to put Valentinian III on the throne. His court was dominated by his mother and a general named Aetius. Aetius campaigned against the Germans in Gaul and restored order there, but the Vandals (who had been in Spain most of this time) invaded North Africa and set up a kingdom there, taking it permanently from Roman control. The Suebi and Visigoths began to expand into Spain, completely destroying imperial authority there. The Eastern Empire tried to regain control of North Africa in the mid 430's but both the Huns to the north and the Sassanids to the East began campaigning against them, so they had to stop the invasion. The Huns launched an invasion of the Western empire in 449 and began ravaging the countryside. The Huns were an incredibly formidable force and had yet to be defeated in a pitched battle against the Romans. In 451 Aetius managed to defeat the Huns in battle, which ended their aura of invincibility and forced them to retreat. They invaded again the next year but were much weaker and agreed to leave diplomatically. Although Aetius was the hero of the battle, two of Valentinian's advisors convinced Valentinian to have him assassinated in 454. The next year, Valentinian himself was assassinated by some of Aetius's followers. Petronius Maximus, one of the advisors who orchestrated the assassination, was proclaimed emperor but was killed after a few months, and Rome was again sacked by the Vandals.

In the East, Theodosius II had died in 450 and his brother-in-law Marcian took the throne; however, Pulcheria, his wife and Theodosius's sister, was the true power behind the throne during both of their reigns. Avitus, a high ranking general, was proclaimed Emperor in the West after Petronius Maximus died but was deposed by a tag-team of Majorian and the German general Ricimer. Together they managed to reconquer large portions of south Gaul and Spain, with Majorian leading the army and Ricimer holding the domestic front in Italy. However, after the Vandals vanquished an attempt to build a fleet and re-take North Africa, Majorian fell out of favor with the Senate and he was killed, with the puppet emperor Libius Severus taking his place in 461. However, Leo I (Eastern emperor since Marcian's death in 457) didn't recognize Libius as a valid emperor and two major revolts in North Gaul and Illyria broke out immediately. Libius died in 465 and Ricimer didn't put another emperor on the throne until 467; this emperor, Anthemius, was the last Western Emperor to have any real power. By this time the Visigoths had completely regained control of the land they lost to Majorian; the western throne was limited to Italy and Illyria. He attempted to defeat the Vandals but failed, with a similar result in his campaign against the Visigoths. Ricimer had him killed in 472, and himself died just a few weeks afterwards. Without any powerful leader, the empire cycled through emperors, until Julius Nepos was elevated in 474. He was deposed in 475 and fled to Illyria, where he claimed he was the ruler, but had no real power and died in 480. Nepos was replaced by Romulus Agustulus, who ruled until the Germanic chieftain Odoacer responded to complaints and deposed him in September of 476. This date traditionally marks the end of the Western Empire, as Latin-speaking Romans no longer held any power in Italy or outside of Illyria.

Shut the fuck up you absolute nigger, I didn't know anything about chinese or japanese history until I played Dynasty/Samurai Warriors. I just finished Nioh to which has fucking Sekigahara in it. In short fucking off yourself.

>mfw americans complain about their history education.
>mfw in australia it's far worse.

After the fall of the western empire, a variety of successor states grew in its place. The Visigoths and suebi divided Hispania, the Vandals held North Africa, the Anglo-Saxons had invaded Britain and the ostrogoths had set up a kingdom in Italy. In Gaul and Germany the situation was more mixed, but a group of Germans called the franks from the Rhine delta rose to prominence under the leadership of their King Clovis and would later create a massive empire. The Eastern Empire under Justinian made an attempt to reconquer the western provinces and was successful, but it proved to be too financially burdensome and they were eventually abandoned. According to Frankish law, a king legally had to divide his kingdom amongst his sons, so every time a Frankish king united his realm it would be divided upon his death, leading to a round a civil wars. This is more or less how Europe remained until the rise of the Arabs. The rashidun caliphate, created after the death of Muhammad in 632 and expanded into the Middle East, conquering (with its successor state the Umayyads) all of Mesopotamia, Syria, Egypt, North Africa, Persia, and Spain. They took a lot of land from the Eastern Empire which the Byzantines would never recover, and contributed to the division of the Mediterranean that led to the rise of Northern Europe as the dominant economic zone.

In the seventh century the Frankish kings began to become incredibly weak and were dominated by their advisors, who became the true rules of the kingdom. These new rulers would eventually become the kings themselves and would be the dynasty that produced Charlemagne. In the early 8th century the Umayyads in Spain tried to invade the Frankish realm beyond the Pyrenees, but were repelled by Charles Martel, Charlemagne's grandfather and ruler of the kingdom. In 750 the Umayyad dynasty was deposed and replaced with the Abbasids, who moved the capital from Damascus to Baghdad. The rulers of Spain remained under the control of the Umayyad family, and would remain in Spain for centuries until a handful of Christian kingdoms and counties to the north began to push south. In Britain a bunch of tiny kingdoms existed, but they eventually became dominated by Mercia and later Wessex, which would unify all of England in the 9th century. The Bulgars, a Turkic-speaking people from Central Asia had migrated west and had fist settled in modern Ukraine before moving south, mixing with the local Greek and Slavic-speaking population and founding the first Bulgarian Empire, which was one of the major opponents of the Byzantine Empire. Charles Martel was succeeded by his son Pepin the Short in 751, who later passed the kingdom onto his son Charlemagne in 768.

Charlemagne expanded the Frankish kingdom to its largest extent, controlling all of modern France, norther Catalonia, the Lowlands, and most of Germany and Northern Italy. Because of his creation of the first true Empire in the west since 476 and his pro-Christian policies, he was crowed Holy Roman Emperor on Christmas day of 800, which would become an important position in the next millennium. He died in 814 leaving the Empire to his only surviving son Louis the Pious, whose reign was characterized by frequent civil wars between his sons in order to get favorable portions of the empire. Louis died in 840, and a short civil war ensued that ended in 843 with the Treaty of Verdun, which divided the Empire between the three surviving sons. The Western third became the Kingdom of France eventually and the Eastern third became the Holy Roman Empire, but the middle third was fought over and became a constant point of conflict between the two halves. In 962 Otto I gained control over the Eastern portion and was crowned Holy Roman Emperor (which hadn't been used since 924), after which the title would be used until 1806. In France Hugh Capet was selected as king in 987, whose house would rule France until Louis Phillipe was dethroned in 1848. Italy remained divided between the HRE to the north and the Byzantines to the south.

Read books and shit.

yes, ancient geography. Like where Lontus was, the names of all the little Roman districts in Italy, africa and the east.

>look at a map
the game is played on a literal map. If you play the game foe hours everyday you will not only know, but remember everything better until its second nature. and its fun. as opposed to just staring at a map

Is that really true? In Argentina, both history and geography are compulsory until the age of 17

Yes, it's still compulsory unless you're in the retard bracket but only one or the other.

desu start where kids start. play age of empires 2 or watch horrible histories. it will be fun and it will pique your interest in particular areas which you can then research further.

A few other important states whose existence I've been ignoring. The Magyars, a group of Uralic-speaking nomads from Central Asia began migrating and settled in the Carpathian basin, where they founded the Principality of Hungary in 895, and were Christianized over the next century and elevated to a Kingdom in the year 1000. A lose confederation of Slavic-speakers in Central Europe formed an early Polish state in the 9th century that would also become a Kingdom in 1025. A loose economic confederation of Eastern Slavic speakers were united by a Scandinavian prince named Oleg, whose dynasty (the Rurik dynasty) would rule this state and its successors until 1613. This state was called the Kievan Rus, because it was centered around Kiev and the people were known as the Rus people, the predecessors of modern Russians, Ukrainians, and Belorussians. To the north, Nordic seafarers called Vikings (who were still pagan) began raids on lands to the south in the 8th century, and they would continue for the next few centuries. Aside from Iceland and the Baltic sea coast, they tended not to stay anywhere, with the significant exception of a region in North France, which got the name Normandy as a result. Another tiny kingdom in the Balkans was also established, the Kingdom of Croatia which was a point of conflict between the Byzantines and Franks over influence.

>The italians rememberered how to think
next renny when?

Im so glad I had the option of a Humanities class in high school.

a-are those testicles on his head? also most history is dumb&wack since most people suck, but it doesnt hurt to know stuff that matters imo

Since the mid tenth century, the Abbasids had more or less collapsed and only controlled a minor statelet around Baghdad. In Iran, the Buyids (and a bunch of other smaller dynasties) rose up and the Fatimid Caliphate (which was the first Shia Caliphate) controlled North Africa, Egypt and eventually the Holy Land and the Hejaz. In the early eleventh century, the Byzantine Empire was re-energized by a group of ambitious emperors from Macedonia, who conquered the Bulgarian Empire in 1018, much of Illyria, and regain control over the entire Anatolian peninsula. After a long history of cultural, theological and political disputes between the Greek East and the Latin West, the two churches (centered in Constantinople and Rome, respectively) finally excommunicated each other, which would have lasting effects on the history of Europe. In 1066, a Norman noble named William led an expedition to England, overthrowing the king and permanently changing the English language.

Vou shall die vat ze hands uv my Standu!

>testicles
no, it's a pictoral representation of the "brainlet" meme. it's a variation of manlet except applied to intelligence, hence why that wojak's brain is peculiarly small.

This is why I come to Veeky Forums

Throughout the tenth and eleventh centuries, a group of Oghuz Turks from Central Asia converted to Islam and created a dynasty that would quickly expand westward, introducing the Turkish language to the Middle East and forming the important Turko-Persian cultural synthesis that the Ottomans and Iranians would use for much of the rest of history. This empire (the Seljuq Empire) would reach its zenith in 1092, controlling the Iranian plateau, pushing the Byzantines almost completely out of Anatolia and gaining control of Syria and the Holy Land. In response to this pressure, Pope Urban II declared a Holy Crusade against the Muslims in order to retake the Holy Land, which would begin an important series of wars that would be basically the only time the European states acted overwhelmingly in unison since the fall of Rome. The First Crusade lasted from 1095-1099 and was by far the most successful, leading to the establishment of a group of states in the Holy Land and Syria and also helping the Byzantines re-conquer much of Anatolia (while leaving the interior of the peninsula to the Turks). Back in Europe, a controversy between the Holy Roman Emperor and the Pope over who had the right to appoint new bishops (bishops often were administrators of small states called bishoprics, which would come to control a massive amount of the land in the HRE). This caused a minor civil war in the HRE, but was ended with the Concordat of Worms in 1122 that allowed the Emperor to give the secular authority over bishops. This was mostly a victory for the RCC, but it marked the beginning of a long struggle for secular authority that would continue until the French Revolution and afterwards. An important even I missed was the reign of Henry I of France from 1031-1060, who saw the lands owned directly by the Crown decrease to their smallest size, leading to a centuries-long quest to centralize the French state (which would be a major cause of the French Revolution).

Quick supplemental: the socio-poltical system (feudalism) of Medieval Europe was completely different from the modern, post French Revolution one and needs a full explaining. First off, the King nominally owned all the land in his Kingdom but often only directly owned a small portion of it; the rest was owned by hereditary Lords (or Dukes, Counts, Bishops, etc). Because the King didn't directly own most of the land, it was incredibly important to him who owned the rest of the land in the Kingdom, leading to things like the investiture controversy. This situation often left other high-ranking nobles at equal or higher levels of absolute power over the King, and they did often revolt because of it. These lords subdivided their lands into areas ruled by knights, who swore loyalty to the Lords first. As a result, the King had no professional standing army; he had to raise an army by commissioning his Lords and knights to raise one (this situation led to a lot of minor civil wars). There also was no centralized bureaucracy (except for the Byzantines); save for taxation (which was often heaviest on peasants, mind you) and religious unity, the Kings didn't really do a lot domestically.

The economic system was based around fiefs, which were large plots of land owned by knights and with a bunch of poor people (called serfs) tied to the land; they were legally barred from leaving it, but weren't owned by the knight (if he sold the land, the serfs went with the land). Many fiefs had castles for defense and to show off wealth, which is why there are so many castles that aren't owned by the king. Non-agricultural work was done by artisans in the cities or manors, and people weren't free to choose their occupation; you did what your father did. Instead of school (which was reserved for the highest of the high class) you would become an apprentice and eventually a member of the guild, which internally regulated quality and standards and whatnot. Merchants and traders stayed in the boroughs around cities, from which they got the name Bourgeoisie. As opposed to the old land-owning rural elite, the wealthy urbanites (whose collective wealth would eventually overtake the landed gentry) had basically no political rights, which fomented revolution in various places.

Three options.

1) Learn an overview of general world history, then focus on one period at a time (try not to get too sidetracked and go on tangents too often). Also don't become too obsessed with trying to learn absolutely everything about one period or civilisation in one go, you'll forget most of it. You can always go back to it later to go in more depth. Respect your memory.

2) Go full /pol/ and make it about the jews. Much simpler option, but it will make you a retard and disliked by pretty much everybody.

3) Become a Kang. It's like /pol/ but more hilarious for others around you.

Learn pop history from places like Reddit and Cracked, and slowly as you acquire more and more of this knowledge embrace a level of elitism over others who try to learn history from Reddit or Cracked, even though you have no real formal knowledge or academic training in the subject.

What are you on about my history class was great

Just browse Veeky Forums

In 1152, Eleanor of Aquitaine annulled her marriage to Louis VII and married Henry II, the King of England, two years later. This marriage brought a huge dowry of lands in France with it (roughly the entire western half of France), creating the Angevin Empire (named because it was based in Anjou), which would dominate Franco-Anglo politics for the next 70 years and lead to the establishment of the Magna Carta. In Iberia, the various kingdoms and counties (from West to East, Portugal, Leon, Castile, and Aragon) had managed to reconquer the northern half of the peninsula, after which there was a significant pause in the Reconquista. From 1147 to 1149 the Second Crusade took place, following the collapse of one of the Crusader states. This Crusade was mostly a failure on the part of the Crusaders, who failed to make any meaningful changes to the political status of the Eastern Mediterranean (although this was when the Portuguese managed to take Lisbon). The Seljuq Empire had begun to splinter around this time, leaving a bunch of tiny Turkish Beyliks in central Anatolia and the Zengrids, former vassals, in control of much of the Middle East. Shortly hereafter, a young Kurdish leader in Cairo will found a new dynasty that will sweep to power and cause many of the following Crusades. Back in France, Louis VII and his father Louis VI had truly begun the process of increasing lands owned directly by the Crown, which Louis VII's successor Phillip II would push along by systematically dismantling the Angevin Empire. Philip ascended to the throne in 1180, and allied himself with two of Henry II's sons (Richard and John, the next two kings of England) and pursued a short war against Henry from 1186 to 1188, wherein he confirmed Richard as his successor and his vassalage to Philip. He died two days after making the treaty, and that combined with news of the fall of Jerusalem to the new Ayyubid Dynasty diverted attention to the East.

>JAMES FUCKING COOKE
>aboriginals were bretty gud :DDD
>WW1 WE WUZ GALLIPOLI N SHIEEEET
>WW2 WE WUZ JAPANESE KILLAZ N SHIEEET

depending on where you are you might do some basic ass ancient history but other than that theres fuck all. not to mention that its noticeable how much its pushed that white people ruined the ''peace'' by colonizing the fucking apes.
t. graduated from hs last year

>browse wikipedia
>find an era that interests you
>read the articles, check out the sources
>get a library card or download the books to read primary sources
>maybe look up university courses and what books they use
etc

that's how I go about it

You could start by watching Crash Course's history videos. Extremely basic, yes, but you will gain a bit of perspective and there may be something there that interests you. Then you'll read up on that period/topic and you'll slowly branch off from there.

>John "calling Alexander THE GREAT is sexist" Green
>John "check your privilege" Green
>John "zebras are harder to tame than horses" Green
>John "this machine kills blue-eyed babies" Green

I didn't say that it wasn't basic or somewhat biased. But I remember watching it a couple of years ago, and I don't remember anything particularly egregious.

>>John "zebras are harder to tame than horses" Green
Also that's from Guns, Germs and Steel.

Either way, if you know nothing about history you have to start with some falsehoods to be able to get a full perspective. After you gain some knowledge, you start gaining room for nuance, and you amend the temporary lies you were told. Otherwise, without the simplifications, you just get bogged down into minutia

play a history game like age or civ or caesar

>pic related is caesar video game

pretty sure age got a smartphone app variant too

that way you get interested in shit and have fun. unless ur a true academic but from ur post i see thats not the case so this is ur answer

pick up a book and read nigger, read.

jhin in league of legends is some nero wannabe cunt too /vidya/

also, maps, study the maps, lots and lots and lots of maps, of anything (not fan fic but geographic accurate/for the time) +

In germany you learn history for at least a year. No way around

This.

Denying any history that took place before that would at least save you from misery like

The Ayyubids, led by a Kurdish warrior named Saladin in Cairo, rose up in the 1170's and created an empire which overthrew the Zengrids and captured many of the Crusader states, including the ever-important Jerusalem. In 1189, Philip and Richard (now the King of England) went on crusade and managed to reconquer many of the Crusader states, but failed to retake Jerusalem. In 1185, the Bulgarian provinces revolted and formed the Second Bulgarian Empire, which conquered most of the European regions of the Byzantine Empire, while the Sultanate of Rum in central Anatolia carved away at their Asian territory. During the Third Crusade, Richard and Philip had a falling out and when they returned tensions between France and England rose, but Richard died in 1199 and was succeeded by his younger brother John, who would pursue a war against France. Philip destroyed the English army at the Battle of Bouvines in 1214, ending the Angevin Empire and forcing John to accept the Magna Carta from angry nobles (John earned the name "Lackland" as a result). In 1202 the Pope ordered another Crusade, which was pursued primarily by Venetian soldiers who ended up sacking Constantinople in 1204, dividing the Byzantine Empire into three sub-states (which would eventually reform the empire in 1261) and creating the "Latin Empire". In England John died in 1215 and was followed by his son Henry III, whose unsuccessful reign would lead to another civil war in England. Philip died in 1223, and his grandson Louis IX (ascended in 1226) would continue the process of French expansion (this time, southwards) and fight two unsuccessful crusades in North Africa. During this period the Iberian kingdoms conquered almost the entire peninsula, after which there wouldn't be significant territorial change until 1480. The Fifth Crusade began in 1213 and tried to attack the Ayyubids in Cairo, but failed by 1221 and petered out shortly thereafter.

If you're writing all of this from your head I am so proud of you

head + wiki searches for dates
you can tell i dont know a lot about the HRE lol

The way I've learned personally is mostly branching out from the history of sciences, weapons or works of art that interest me. Also learned a lot in school, though, or rather got a good enough idea of a lot of areas in school to inspire me to research more on my own time.

Like most subjects, history is kind of fractal in nature. You can focus on the history of the human race as a whole and get a good idea of the big picture, but you can also focus on one period and learning about it can consume your entire life, and many people fixate on a single war or even a single person. Even then you'd be hard pressed to run out of new details to learn and perspectives to grasp.

>head + wiki searches for dates
I'm so glad we live in an era where almost anyone can just whip out a device to tell them tedious details like dates so we have more headroom for the important bits.

The Sixth Crusade was mostly a diplomatic measure led by the Holy Roman Emperor Fredrick II in 1229, which led to the re-establishment of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. When Fredrick died in 1250, there was an interregnum with no Emperor being unilaterally recognized (the HRE was an elective monarchy, so it didn't immediately fall onto Fredrick's son). The next Emperor, Rudolf I, would be recognized in 1273 and would be the first Emperor from the House of Habsburg, who would eventually come to dominate all of Central Europe (the House of Habsburg was centered in the Duchy of Austria). However, an entirely unexpected event suddenly happened in the 1240's and 1250's that completely changed the ballgame for Eastern Europe and the Middle East; the Mongol Invasion. The Mongols, a nomadic tribe of horsemen north of China who, under the leadership of Genghis Khan, unified and conquered China in the early 1200's. Genghis died in 1227 and was followed by his son Ögedei, who expanded into Iran, the Middle East, and the Kievan Rus in the following decades. The Empire would dissolve into four successor states in the following decades, but it did dissolve the Kievan Rus and unite the various tiny states in Iran and Mesopotamia. The Kievan Rus would be replaced by the Golden Horde (one of the successors of the Mongol Empire) who basically just demanded money from the Rus states, which were divided into basically city states. In 1283, Daniil, the Prince of Moscow, began the long process of re-unifying the Rus states. The Ilkhanate, centered in Iran, unified all the Persianate states in the area (including the Abbasids, who were dissolved after the sack of Baghdad in 1258). Around this time, Mamluk (i.e. slave-class) Turks revolted against the Ayyubids and founded a dynasty that would retake the Holy Land by the end of the century and last until the Ottomans conquered them in 1517. In 1261 the Byzantine Empire was re-formed, but was mostly irrelevant at this point.

It depends on which era you like most, start from there with general facts and then get more in the specific every time.

Are you going to post the complete history of the world ?

>He just doesn't stop