What got you into history?

My unqualified and hyper-Conservative high school history teacher.

I had to read Capital in high school just to make sure she got facts right, and that probably was for the best since I can't remember giving a shit about history prior to that.

>>346267
Exact same OP, and watching history docs with my dad. Rory McGrath's Bloody Britain and Terry Jone's Medieval lives were the shit.

My favourite HH was the Twentieth Century one, which is still one of my favourite eras of history. Looking back its weird how well it covered things, I remember it covering Thatcheite urban decay with particular flair.

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>>346294
>My favourite HH was the Twentieth Century one, which is still one of my favourite eras of history. Looking back its weird how well it covered things, I remember it covering Thatcheite urban decay with particular flair.
>mfw it said the human race would go extinct in 2000
Our present year is 2015

>>346267
I've had a hard on for history ever since learning about the Ancient Egyptians as a toddler. I could never get enough of it, and it's too bad that you can't get many good jobs with a degree in history.

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tfw

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>>346267

My dad was the world champion at a WW2 strategy game called World in Flames when I was a kid. (This is less impressive than it sounds, there are probably only 4-500 people who play the game worldwide)

But I grew up with this monster game in the basement, and Dad taught me to play since he spent so much time down there analyzing positions. And then once I started playing myself, well, we're talking a 7 year old child against a world champion, I got squished. So I started looking into history books for at least a basic idea as to what I should be doing, the "historical" approach couldn't be that bad, right? And that's where the ball got rolling.

It's habit forming too, it's how I learn most of my history, as playing a game set in some period gets me interested, and then I want to learn more.


Pic is from a vassal cyberboard of my current game with some buddies. We're about to start March of 1942. The Germans tried a really risky trick on Leningrad, moving people onto Lake Ladoga to get more frontage, and they were literally one roll short on a 2d10 of taking the city with the attack. But the Soviets barely held, and now there's a 70% chance of the lake thawing before the Germans and Finns have a chance to scuttle out of the way, so they're probably all going to die.

>>346310
We were lucky to be raised on these books, Anon.

>Many of Deary's books make very serious points, underneath all the jokes and gore. He often comments on whether the modern era is as vile as previous eras, and questions the reader's morals and patriotism. Deary explains "I'd basically concluded [The British Empire] was one of the worst things to happen to the planet. So I deployed the facts that illustrate that". The Guardian explains "The last chapter of Ruthless Romans portrays modern-day Zimbabwe and essentially asks, is this any different?". The musical stage show Barmy Britain, co-written by Deary, "features a finale whose sarcastic references to burger bars, bankers and internet dating leave its young audience in little doubt that whatever the crazed excesses of our ancestors, future generations will doubtless consider us every bit as loopy". When informed by a Jewish mother that her Rabbi told her not to introduce her children to the Holocaust before 13 years old, and that her 6-year-old had read it in Horrible Histories, Deary replied: "Sorry, but what am I supposed to do – lie to children?".[7]

>Deary is very distrustful of the establishment. He said "I was beaten, bullied and abused at school in the name of passing exams. It taught me nothing and I had to break out. So I started challenging authority at school, really, and just kind of never stopped". He didn't reply to Tony Blair's invitation to come to No 10, telling The Guardian "The only politician ever to have entered parliament with honourable intentions, was Guy Fawkes". He also declined an invitation to meet the Queen, and said he was "deeply disappointed" that the BBC's diamond jubilee coverage included a Horrible Histories sketch live from Tower Bridge.[7]

>>346315
If someone wants to scan some of these cartoons over (I would but I gave my books away to my friend's kid on his birthday) it would make a fascinating thread.

>>346321
Wow, never knew he was this much of a cunt.

>>346330
Aw come on, a bit of healthy anti establishment-ism never hurt anyone. You don't want your kids to challenge shit?

When my father knew alot of United States history. His last completed school year was sixth grade and he was raised in South America. He loved the USA, not just more jobs, but its rich history of being the underdog since the American Revolution.

My father would always bring up hisotry at dinner with new information and I was fascinated. No matter your education, knowing history is important to learn the mistakes we shouldn't do. That's why I love history

Well, desu I think I got into history thanks to video games. Age Of Empires/Mythology mostly. Then Medieval Total War, Europa Universalis...

>>346267
It's just something I always liked. When I was in middle school and the like I'd read the shitty history textbooks just for fun. It was always my favorite subject but I guess I didn't get seriously interested until I played Dynasty Warriors 4 since obviously Chinese history was something I didn't have much knowledge of previously.

Grandad
:)
>>341302

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I was a child.

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my completely disinterested history teacher sophomore year of high school. He'd just use the teacher's copy and make us write down notes he wrote on the board or used powerpoint presentations.
He actually loved history, but teaching to kids that didn't want to be there made him hate his job.
he put me in the back near his desk so we could chat about history and current events
I would have requested to be his teacher's aide but he moved to another school the next year.

>>346267
AOE2
Also I didn't have many friends as a kid so I went to the library a lot.

>>346267

>For me it was the Horrible Histories series of books here in the UK.

Same here.

>>346462
He sounds pretty based anon.

When I had to take Sociology in highschool. I knew a bit about history from reading books here and there, so I knew about common things like Rome, Medieval Europe, Renaissance, Industrial Revolution, WWI and WWII. The teacher start talking to us about Rome, then describes us "The Dark Ages" (Basically describes the period as it was a parody of The Holy Grail, people sleeping in shit, etc...), start talking Renaissance, says that in that period people started using currency, doesn't explain WWI, jump to WWII, Stalin was the good guy all along. I learned that semester that leftist are the least loyal people in the whole world, that are capable of lying and performing mental gymnastics to present things to fit in the ideology, and are not to be trusted with truth. History should be objective, if I wanted to know the truth, I would need to research for myself instead of accepting as facts whatever someone else says. That is the reason why I always ask other anons to post sources along with whatever they state as a fact, and you should do the same.

>>346317

-2/10

Official thread loser.

>>346518
Why?

Watching documentaries with my mother when I was very young

>>346521

>Herpyderp I learned history from playing a game!

What's next? Learning philosophy from vidya? And have you ever met wargamers? They are, almost without exception, fat, neckbeardy autists, endlessly whinging about this gun's armor penetration or this engine's performance in exactly this amount of mud. "Autistic" is an understatement where they're concerned.

I'm 99% sure his "knowledge" of history is just rattling off inane bits of trivia while having no conception whatsoever for their context.

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>>346545
Anon, why are you such a faggot?
Did mommy not suck your dick for you when it got hard?

>>346545
where did the old man touch you?

to be honest, the game civilization 2 which I used to play a lot as a kid

>>346630
>raped by grognards
Crowd fund it.

>>346315
Malvinas War*
Que son Argentinas por sinal

>>346545
>this assravaged that some people have nerdy hobbies

>>>>>on a board that is mostly about the discussion of historical events

Something something cognitive dissonance.

>>346337
What if they become Guy Fawkes-mask-wearing internet activists?

>>346267
I watched a lot of National Geographic as a kid, and it was history from there. I also loved the shit out of the documentaries we watched in history class, like stuff about the Revolution, and Lewis and Clarke.

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>>346267
Horrible histories and just appeal of history. This was so long ago.

>>346267
>Horrible Histories

hehe

yeah that shit was cash

Whenever they did the American Revolutionary/Civil War wanking in elementary school I always loved looking at the maps showing battles and routes taken by armies.

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My dad told me about the civil war when i was like 5 or 6, so he gave me a bunch of books i could look at with pictures and shit, and that's it mayn.


who else /boxesofcivilwarfigures/ here?

Histeria! anyone?
I'm a youngun.

>>346454
Between this motherfucking game and my Texas History textbook in 4th grade, I had a shitton of help with the history boner!

>>346267
Age of Empires 1
But also a series of books about Vikings in my school library. I would spend lunchbreak just erading about Regnar Lodbrog and his sons. It was kiddy history but decent. Also a series of Encyclopedias for kids.

>>346454
That city looks comfy as fuck.

>>347358
then they completely failed in the anti-establishment part

WW2 games really.
I am mostly fascinated by Roman Republican history, but thats probabaly because i live in Italy.

I like looking at historical maps

>>346545
Ah, just as I expected then, me laddie :^)

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>>347545
I made my poor grandma buy me so frickin many of these civil war kits

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Had a teacher in 5th grade who did this massive class wide project on WW2.

He split the class into the Allies and Axis, and three teams for each side, US, Great Britain, and France for the Allies (don't know why he didn't include the USSR), and Germany, Italy, and Japan for the Axis. The teams for each side would have to work together on class and homework and accumulate points to beat the other side, and each team had their own individual things they needed to do which would contribute to the overall side they were on.

I was put on Japan, and at the time I associated Japan with Gundam and Ninjas, so I was hype as shit and really into it.

We lost, but it got most of the class into history, don't know a single person from said class today is still interested in history, but damn was that a good idea from the teacher.


Beyond that, I took interest in my heritage (Russian and French) and the mass killings and such in both countries histories. Nothing is more interesting to me than how creative mankind gets when trying to kill itself.

My parents bought me a ton of Playmobil knights and such when I was really little. That got me into the Medieval era, and when I started reading I picked up a lot of historical fiction/old legends. The kid's version of Parzival was my jam

>>346267

It came naturally to me when i was little ; at first i liked it because of the epicness, it was like real life heroic fantasy. Growing up i switched to more serious history but i still do like this side of history. Secretly i believe in the great man theory, but shh, its a secret.

>>346286
I know that feel.

What got me into history was how interesting it was. i also had a sense of "le born in the wrong generation"

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Mom would show me her Soviet memorabilia and DAd would talk about how he served in the Soviet Military. Grandma would talk about how life was back then so that got me more curious "What was life like even BEFORE then?".
Also Empire Earth and Stronghold Crusader influenced me a lot too.

My school had a super kickass SS department with classes in comparative politics, European history, the Middle East conflict, etc. shit was based

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>>346267
Damn OP, I remember borrowing these books from the library as a kid because we were too poor to buy them.

Man, I feel old

>>346321

> le guy fawkes honest intentions may may

Yes, because mass murder in the name of religious terrorism with the hope of overthrowing a legitimate government, sure is honest.

>>346267
I got some Horrible Histories books from family friends in the UK.

>>346267
I realized I was into history when I noticed that although I didn't pay any attention to class, unlike for every other subject is was because I was reading the book and I was 2-3 chapters beyond the rest of the classroom instead of due to reading magazines or sleeping or chatting. Some teachers used to get mad as fuck when I answered correctly to a question they were sure I couldn't answer because I wasn't listening to them right then but I had in fact read about in class the week before. Others however were extatic to have a student who actually loved the subject they were teaching and they let me read ahead, only asking me shit when the rest of the class couldn't manage an answer.

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pic related

>>346267
There was an illustrated version of the Iliad and the Odyssey at my school library in 2nd grade.
Can't find it at any bookstore for the life of me :(

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>>346267
My niggah. The very first issue of the magazine for me

Cartoon history of the universe by Larry Gonick

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfnLa4B-Pbg
I'm pretty sure this did the trick.

Interest in science with analytical/unbiased(as much as I could) mind. The pursuit of truth and clarity.

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My grandpa loved history too and bought me this when I was 4. Ever since then I've loved history.

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>>346267
my first HH Was actually Rotten Romans OP
Only got it because I saw my first crush reading pic related
I think I was about 6 or 7
She was a Scott

>>346267
those books single-handedly got me into history and reading

they were pretty decent if I recall

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What got me into history was medieval 2 total war, odd I know but when I played it I wanted to know more about the period. This got me started into reading books and over time I decided to look into other periods of history.

Even now when I had gotten a a new total war game a few years back it made me look into that historical period as well.

When I was 5, I told my grandma to stop buying me childrens books because they are nonsense and buy me encyclopedies instead. She liked history a lot so she was buying mainly history stuff so I read that.

My dad being a historian himself and reading my the Odyssey and similar things in bed when I was a little kid definitely started it, but for years I thought I wanted to go into some STEM field. It wasn't until I took an EXTREMELY well taught US history course as well as an environmental science lab (after a year of envsci classes, which were very interesting) at a community college that I realized that I actually hated doing science and only liked the history of science itself.

Now I'm shooting for a BA in history followed by a PhD specializing in post-Roman Europe (basically what people refer to as the dark ages)

>>350900
For clarification's sake, the professor of the US history course taught the entire semester as if it was one continuous, unbroken narrative instead of just assigning a chapter to read and then summarizing said chapter the next day.
The dude had this massive binder filled with his narrative and would just pick up his lecture every class,also a super super nice dude

>>346267
My uncle travelled the world as a representative of a respected ethanol corporation so he would bring me souvenirs, which I was so curious to learn about. I still have my didgeridoo made with a coat of beeswax and pigment paints.

This board desu

>>350749
You sound like a really fun person to be around

I was a fantasy nerd as a kid because I had no friends and I viewed history as a really complex story with the added bonus that it actually happened.

>>346321
Good man.

>>350427
Man, this was the first book of the collection I bought in English, together with one on the USA, before I only had others in Portuguese. Good stuff

>>350923
cool

>>348464
That sounds fuckin awesome.

I can't remember having a good history class before GCSE level (age 16-17 for non brits). But my dad is really into history so I got into it through him talking about historical stuff, model kits, and documentaries.

>>348464
nice!

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>>346267
napoleon total war
say what you want, i played all tw games before that one since medieval II but i have to say that ntw caught my interest in the napoleonic period - and from that point one i started caring about a subject that i could only rate as boring as fuck since all the information i previously had came from public schooling.

>>347308
you're lucky the english can't into the most white language of them all or else hell would be breaking loose right now
t.: o portugal

I saw a documentary of ancient Egypt at the Imax when I was about 6 years old. For some reason, all the gorgeous shots of the pyramids and ruins resounded in me and I begged my mom to buy me some books about Egypt, which really got the ball rolling. My family also visited Italy that summer where I got to visit Roman ruins in the flesh.

I think another major event in my interest was in sixth grade when everyone was assigned a history project. I was assigned Rome, and ended up going into depth a great deal about the first triumvirate and Ceasar's rise to power. Everyone else did half ass shit that glossed over major events like WWII or the American Revolution.

>>346267
duuuuudde

i have the entire bookset

even horrible science

those days i'd spend cosied up to the radiator and just going through that shit

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>>346267
pic related

I think it's pretty unique in history for kids in its sheer scope. Although I remember it as having some strong biases. And it often ventured into myth.

I wish he wrote a lot more volumes instead of cramming so much of modern history into a couple of books.

>>346267
Tbh. When I was young, I saw pearl harbor and fell in love with planes and battleships. The rest I suppose, is history.