I thought i do something off the cuff as my first post. My interest in Irish History pretty started from my uncle. But my interest in World History, pretty much through games, like for Roman History, Rome Total War, WW2 Medal of Honour, medieval, Medieval Total war and sid meier civilisation. Which got me reading books and watching documentries.
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YAY! Excellent. I think that’s great.
For me, it was the Alamo. Specifically, the 1960 John Wayne film. I loved that movie as a kid. The Siege of the Alamo ran from 23 February to 6 March 1836. My younger brother, Jason, and I declared 23 February “Alamo Day” when we were kids - and have celebrated that day ever since.
Today, the Alamo is understood differently than when Jason and I were kids in the 1970’s - but the best aspects of that event are still worth honoring.
I feel like Alamo day should be an offical holiday, if it already isn’t.
For me it was my parents. When I was a kid we went on holidays in Greece and my parents were very much into ancient ruins. So I grew up on Greek mythology and climbing temple ruins on Aegean islands. The climbing ruins part would totally not be ok anymore today…
I would like to visit Greece one day, particulary the old city-state of Sparta.
HA HA HA HA! In San Antonio,Texas, Alamo Day (not called that) is observed on 6 March - the date of the battle. But my brother and I always felt it made more sense to celebrate 23 February - when the siege began and everyone inside was still alive.
The 6 March Celebration in San Antonio is quite an event though. There’s a reenactment of the battle, a ceremony (a very long ceremony), and various other events throughout the day. The Alamo just celebrated its 190th anniversary - so that was a really big “Alamo Day.”
It was my 6th grade History book. The topic was the Indus Valley Civilisation. For most Indian kids, it is the stepping stone in the world of history. I would admit that my interests were all over the place back then. But that was when I started wondering how people lived before me, and why we live the way we do. Right now, I am a 3rd year History undergraduate, willing to pursue research in History.
To be honest, I can’t remember any one moment or event that made me love history. I did grow up watching Xena (thanks, dad), so I definitely had exposure to ancient history stories as a young child. I was also obsessed with the animated movie Anastasia, and I remember wanting to learn more about her and the Romanovs’ story, only to find out that it was nowhere near as rosy as the movie made it seem. I was a huge bookworm from the age of 7, and I read The Royal Diaries series for children, which told the stories about powerful queens, and that was fascinating to me.
I think it was always ingrained in me, and over time, little moments just grew that love and knowledge of history.
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YAY Xena! A friend of my daughter once said, “Let’s face it - everything we know about Greek mythology and ancient history comes from Xena.” That was a great show. When my daughter was young, Xena was basically “church” every Sunday afternoon once it became syndicated.
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I use to watch that show every Saturday religiously, as well Hercules and Young Hercules. Now as thinking of it, maybe that is how i got into Greek Mythology and history.
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For me it was an interest in Indus Valley Civillisation . And specifically childish dream of deciphering its script .
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All Indian kids were quite interested in deciphering the script, once we learnt about it! I fear I still have some belief in myself.
You better get on deciphering it then! 
There’s now a $1M prize for whoever deciphers it first: Indus Valley: A million-dollar challenge to crack the script of early Indians - BBC News
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I wish I can . The problem is that the script has alluded all the previous methods including going backward from present . But I hope one day someone will do it . We need to find a bilingual inscription maybe which will give a breakthrough . Well any opinion on why we are not able to break it or how it can be done ?
I agree with you. The biggest reason behind the failure is indeed the unavailability of resources to apply the methods we do know of. Most lost languages were translated due to the availability of bilingual inscriptions or related scripts. After the fall of the Indus Valley Civilisation, the people stopped procuring written material. While there are archaeological evidences of “geometric shapes” or even “graffiti marks” that many scholars attribute to post-Harappan age, those are still not sufficient. The lack of resources poses the ultimate problem in this case. We probably need new methods, focus more on archaeological studies (which honestly is a tad bit lacking in our country). Hopefully, someday we will get there!
When I was in high school (mid 60’s) I was visiting a family in Illinois. In their living room they had a clay/ceramic vase displayed in a recessed glass covered enclosure. It was from sometime during the Roman empire! I remembered staring at it and thinking “A real person made and used this centuries ago”… Blew me away.
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For me it started less with a grand love of “History” as a subject and more with a specific curiosity that wouldn’t let go: I kept wondering why certain food practices and dietary rules exist the way they do why some foods are sacred, some forbidden, some tied to specific rituals. That question kept pulling me further back in time, and eventually landed me studying Vedic and early classical Sanskrit texts to understand how food, ritual, and social order were bound together in ancient India.
What keeps me in it now is realizing how much of what feels “natural” today what we eat, what we consider pure or impure, even what counts as a proper meal is actually the residue of centuries of ritual and social negotiation. Once you see that, you can’t really unsee it, and it makes we want to keep digging.
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You may think it’s silly but it was the movie National Treasure that got me into history.
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