Seconded. I've learnt history forwards at the school and all I've got was a mess on weakly connected facts. Since then I was learning about the history the oth

Seconded. I've learnt history forwards at the school and all I've got was a mess on weakly connected facts. Since then I was learning about the history the other way round: I kind of know what happened during my lifetime, I have an vague idea of what followed from what. What people thought, what people did etc. I can get further back by asking my parents or reading press from. say, sixties. Books written by folks at the time help as well. I can get as far back as WWII by remembering what my grandparents said. Going even further back is hard as there's not a lot of survivors anymore, but you still have contemporary press and books. Even further back... I've moved to Switzerland few years ago and I've started to understand how European culture worked before WWI. Switzerland, not taking part in the wars of XX. century preserved that past to some extent. Going even further back is hard. The documents are starting to get scarce. Also, the world is getting more alien in XIX. century. There was an article discussed on HN about a message from 1880. The world there is strange on not one you can easily relate to: https://www.bbc.com/news/stories-44265475 https://www.bbc.com/news/stories-44265475 But with enough trying, I think I can cover at least second half of XIX. century in next few decades, meaning that I will be able to think about it as if I was living at the time.