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I like reading about the Ancient Greeks and the Ancient Chinese. They interest me.
Don't much care to hear about the Boer Wars. Too boering for my taste.
If we're speaking of the most "damaging", or negative event in the history of civilization -- it would have to be the fall of the Roman Empire, which essentially halted human progress for hundreds of years.
If we're speaking of the most "damaging", or negative event in the history of civilization -- it would have to be the fall of the Roman Empire, which essentially halted human progress for hundreds of years.
The Romans were the last of the great empires going back some 3,000 years before them on the vast Eurasian continent and the southern shores of the Mediterranean sea.
The collapse of the Roman Empire in the extreme west only affected the regions of Africa (Tunisia, Algeria, Mauritania), then Lusitania (Portugal), Hispania (Spain), Gaul (France), Belgica (Belgium), Germany and a few others which centuries later became Europe, a tiny portion of humanity.
By far the vast majority of the rest of the world from the eastern and southern Mediterranean to India and even to parts of southeast Asia went on very well, thank you, just as they had done for the previous 3,000 years.
Just like agriculture had been some 10,000 years previously, the game-changer in recent times has been industrialization, which just happened to start in Europe about two centuries ago, but in another century or two that won't matter anymore.
By the same token, the fall of the Roman Empire in what later became mostly western Europe was small potatoes, the vast majority of humanity didn't notice it and went on living just as they had done before, for better and for worse.
The destruction of the great library of Baghdad by the mongols. The destruction of the library set humanity back by 500 years in development. The only significance of the destruction is that middle eastern knowledge stagnated, and Western technology and innovations began to take off such as the caravel.
The destruction of the great library of Baghdad by the mongols. The destruction of the library set humanity back by 500 years in development. The only significance of the destruction is that middle eastern knowledge stagnated, and Western technology and innovations began to take off such as the caravel.
That's a good one!
True, circumnavigation of the globe was a big deal, which started with the Spanish and Portuguese (with an assist from Venetians and Genoese), then other Europeans led by the British, Dutch and the French, but I am not convinced that it would have been a permanent game-changer if industrialization hadn't followed very closely on its heels.
The older history is the less I am able to follow it. I was never a fan of the history of ancient civilizations.
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