what sparked your interest in history?

[Inhuman One]

I suppose everyone here on these forums has one thing in common: we like history or at least one period of it.

So my question is, what did it start with? what are the origins of your interest? a book? toy soldiers? a story you heard? a place you visited? a cartoon or comic? For most it was probably in their childhood but for some it might have come later.


For me personly it started at a very young age, I think it started with Lego and Playmobil toys. Knights always catched my interest. Through my childhood I pretty much started to collect knights of Playmobil, and often played with the small castle of playmobil that belonged to my 14 year older brother. I had about 12 different knights.

With lego I often build castles, I didnt have that much soldiers of it I think and didnt own a castle but used the parts of various smaller buildings of the theme to build one, often with secret rooms, hiding places and such.

I think it was mostly the playmobil that sparked my interest though, it had far more detail, and more realism now that I think back about it. Lego had little else but soldiers, but with playmobil theres also peasants, musicians, a royal family, bards, etc. When I seperated my stuff from that of my siblings a short while ago I couldnt help but think which countries those toy knights represented. Denmark, Ireland, Spain, the HRE, France and England seemed to be represented. Funny how I had no idea about that in the years I played with those toys.

There werent many cartoons with a medieval theme on tv back then I think, I cant remember much of it at least so I doubt it was of much influence, I can still recall many things of the time I played with lego and playmobil though.

Kind of funny that in some sense I never stopped playing with it, videogames are kind of the sequel to such toys. First I build castles and fought wars with lego and playmobil, and now I do it with medieval 2, stronghold, age of empires 2 and other such games.


My interest in older history came after my childhood since I used to associate this period with the many boring bible stories I heard almost every day during my childhood.

Beyond the medieval age my interest has always been more limited, although in recent years my interest in the imperial age has grown through watching movies as the last of the mohicans (didnt see it earlier), master and commander, the patriot and mostly empire total war. It did cause me to look up more stuff of this period on the internet.

In the end knights still fascinate me the most, thats also why I have one as my avatar.

[boofhead]

As a kid mum always bought me these great picture books about ancient civilizations, and she was always one to encourage my interests. Also reading about the wars and mighty men in the Bible, and cartoons about people trapped in prehistoric times (can't remember the name) - also He-man lol. In primary school I always liked fantastical tales, which inevitably involved notions of chivalry and old-style warfare. A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. The main trigger in my life was my History and then Ancient History teacher in High School. He was such a passionate teacher - we used to play Dungeons and Dragons with him as DM every recess and lunch for years - he had an enormous library of fantasy novels and used to loan them out to me and my friends all the time - and when we got to the more senior years of studying the Peloponnesian Wars and Rome, his enthusiasm for the subject was infectious to all. When I got to uni I just naturally kicked arse in Ancient History (until I quit to get a real job).

[Pious Agnost]

I was obsessed with Romans. No clue why I did in the first place, but I did.

But from there it kind of branched out, Medieval England, the Russian States, the World Wars, Cold war, e.t.c..

[Babur]

The horrible history books kick started my interest in history:

Horrible Histories is a series of illustrated books published in the United Kingdom by Scholastic. They are designed to get children interested in history by concentrating on the trivial, unusual, gory, or unpleasant. The series has proved exceptionally successful in commercial terms. The books are written by Terry Deary, Peter Hepplewhite and Neil Tonge and illustrated by Martin Brown and Philip Reeve.
The first books in the series, The Terrible Tudors and The Awesome Egyptians, were published in June 1993.
In May 2007, 8 of the original series of books were relaunched with new covers and extra content. The remainder are in the process of being republished in the new format, with a completion date of January 2009.[1] See Book Makeover.
Published by Scholastic UK, Horrible Histories has sold over ten million copies in the UK alone and has been translated into 37 languages worldwide.

more can be found out about them here

[Pious Agnost]

The horrible history books kick started my interest in history:

I read those too!

[Lance-Corporal Jones]

I read those too!

Thirded. Those were awesome.

[King Edward III]

Thirded. Those were awesome.

Fourthed. Although I was already interested in history by then.. the history channel then I guess?

I know however know what got me interested in Greek Mythology..

[Orko]

I know however know what got me interested in Greek Mythology..

For me it was AOM. awesome game.

[Ascarona]

I read those too!

I still have the one about "The Rotten Romans".

Anyway back on topic:
I think it was the Trojan War that got me interestind in the subject, one of the most important wars of Greece.

[Pallantides]

[Lance-Corporal Jones]

QFT

[Orko]

Lol. Same with me. Though it was AOE2

[removeduser_487563287433]

I thought I was going to be original in saying this.

More specifically, however, the manual. This was from the days when computer game manuals were really something, and AOE was up there as a classic example, along with games like Sim City 2000. Sim City 2000's manual was amazing... full of philosophy, art, history. A fascinating document.

AOE's manual (which I have not a meter away from me, even now, as a 22 year old Bachelor of Classical Studies) contains about three pages of historical information on every faction in the game. It sparked my interest especially in the phoenicians, which would develop into the Hittites, which I would finally specialise in at university.

[Aru]

Nothing, I was always interested in history as long as I remember.

[EireEmerald]

Horrible Histories.

[Nazgûl Killer]

I suppose everyone here on these forums has one thing in common: we like history or at least one period of it.

So my question is, what did it start with? what are the origins of your interest? a book? toy soldiers? a story you heard? a place you visited? a cartoon or comic? For most it was probably in their childhood but for some it might have come later.


For me personly it started at a very young age, I think it started with Lego and Playmobil toys. Knights always catched my interest. Through my childhood I pretty much started to collect knights of Playmobil, and often played with the small castle of playmobil that belonged to my 14 year older brother. I had about 12 different knights.

With lego I often build castles, I didnt have that much soldiers of it I think and didnt own a castle but used the parts of various smaller buildings of the theme to build one, often with secret rooms, hiding places and such.

I think it was mostly the playmobil that sparked my interest though, it had far more detail, and more realism now that I think back about it. Lego had little else but soldiers, but with playmobil theres also peasants, musicians, a royal family, bards, etc. When I seperated my stuff from that of my siblings a short while ago I couldnt help but think which countries those toy knights represented. Denmark, Ireland, Spain, the HRE, France and England seemed to be represented. Funny how I had no idea about that in the years I played with those toys.

There werent many cartoons with a medieval theme on tv back then I think, I cant remember much of it at least so I doubt it was of much influence, I can still recall many things of the time I played with lego and playmobil though.

Kind of funny that in some sense I never stopped playing with it, videogames are kind of the sequel to such toys. First I build castles and fought wars with lego and playmobil, and now I do it with medieval 2, stronghold, age of empires 2 and other such games.


My interest in older history came after my childhood since I used to associate this period with the many boring bible stories I heard almost every day during my childhood.

Beyond the medieval age my interest has always been more limited, although in recent years my interest in the imperial age has grown through watching movies as the last of the mohicans (didnt see it earlier), master and commander, the patriot and mostly empire total war. It did cause me to look up more stuff of this period on the internet.

In the end knights still fascinate me the most, thats also why I have one as my avatar.

Well, I had a passion for history ever since I was born, started with my brother teaching me about my nation's wars and WW2, and my other brother teaching me about WW1 when I was around 6 years old.
When I was a bit older I asked my grandpa (Aged 96 now, born in 1913 if I remember correctly) about his life as a part of a school assignment and it became so much bigger than that.

The main time frames that attract me about history are the WW1-WW2 periods and medieval times.

[C-Rob]

... it's easier than studying the future.

no, I just think it's an easy subject to get into, so it's really easy to know stuff because unless some weird discovery is made that completely rewrites it, history is static. Oh, and swords>guns.

[sabaku_no_gaara]

When I was a kidd I spent most my time in hospitals, the principal of my elementry school used to bring books when he visited me about the vikings, the Germans, the Romans etc... and I read a lot of comics about the rode ridder (the red knight)

That's how it all started!

[Inhuman One]

Those are some good comics, I only read some at a later age. That does remind me, as a child I did often read Suske & Wiske comics, which did contain the occasional time travel to medieval times and other historic periods. Pretty much only does written by Willy Vandersteen, his follow ups where terrible.

[dogukan]

age of!!!HELL YEAH!!....also the Asterix series and my love for Romans. Legos, some movies and stories I have read/seen.
Swords and armors too have always made me go..."oh god" when I was younger. I also loved the 18th-19th century and their warfare.
And well I'm also extremely interested in soldiers and military related things. My toys were always soldiers.