RicOlie_2 said:

moviefreakedmind said:

RicOlie_2 - What are some of your favorite historical time periods to study? Mine are the Roman Empire, French Revolution/Napoleonic era, the mid to late 1800s in the U.S. and the World Wars and the Cold War. Everything during and after the 1980s is interesting too but it's getting dangerously close to my birth year so I don't like to think of any of it as history ;)

It varies, but I take a frequent interest in ancient Middle Eastern history, particularly Egypt and Babylonia. I'm also interested in the late Middle Ages and Renaissance. Other things I'm interested mostly because one hears relatively little about them, such as Ancient China/Japan (and the rest of the Far East), or what was happening around the world during periods when we tend to focus a lot on one area--usually Europe. Most of the time it's because there isn't really much to be told, but sometimes it's simply because it's less relevant or considered less interesting. For instance, I've hear a fair bit about the colonization period of America, but far less about that of Australia, or South America, or Africa.

The colonization of Africa is particularly overlooked. During the late 1800s and early 1900s European empires colonized the vast majority of the continent, and it was a real bloodbath at times. I remember reading about how over 5 million Congolese people died during Belgium's first attempt to colonize the Congo. It's sad that it doesn't get a lot of attention today, it's skimmed over to an extreme.