So what is your favourite period in history?

[Thomas]

My main reading on history has been the more popular talking points, especially the ancient classics Greek/Roman/Egyptian etc, but I find a particular interest in the events of the "Cold War" period.



My partner however is much more academically invested into history than I am, especially the medieval period during the times of the witch trials, which she wants to further study at a masters level.

Im a particular fan of the classics as well nalaar , and especially ancient greece. Love the Iliad , odyssey and general greek mythology.



Good story about the witch trials from my old toun of paisley , i remember my auld grandpa telling me all about it one day on the bus as we passed over an old horseshoe embedded into the crossroads at maxwelton in paisley.....





https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paisley_witches">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paisley_witches

The Paisley witches, also known as the Bargarran witches or the Renfrewshire witches, were tried in Paisley, Renfrewshire, central Scotland, in 1697. Eleven-year-old Christian Shaw, daughter of the Laird of Bargarran, complained of being tormented by some local witches; they included one of her family's servants, Catherine Campbell, whom she had reported to her mother after witnessing her steal a drink of milk.



Seven people – Margaret Lang, John Lindsay, James Lindsay, John Reid, Catherine Campbell, Margaret Fulton, and Agnes Naismith – were found guilty of having bewitched Shaw and were condemned to death. One subsequently committed suicide by hanging himself in his prison cell, and it is believed that Naismith may have died while imprisoned. The other five were hanged and then burned on the Gallow Green in Paisley on 10 June 1697, the last mass execution for witchcraft in western Europe.



Agnes Naismith cursed everyone present at her trial and their descendants, and for many years afterwards every tragedy in Paisley was blamed on her curse

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[Nalaar]

My main reading on history has been the more popular talking points, especially the ancient classics Greek/Roman/Egyptian etc, but I find a particular interest in the events of the "Cold War" period.



My partner however is much more academically invested into history than I am, especially the medieval period during the times of the witch trials, which she wants to further study at a masters level.

[Thomas]

I am going to cop out straight away and say that I don't have one. If the period is well described then I am interested. It is a bit like A J P Taylor's broadcasts. He would walk into the studio, look at the camera and say, "Tonight I thought we would discuss the Piedmont Hegemony" And I, along with millions of other Brits would think Piedmont, is that some sort of Italian bootmaker? But it did not matter because by then Taylor was ambling through his subject with us trailing faithfully behind.



Anyway, what is your favourite period?

Like you borkie , im not sure i have a favourite period in history. Im interested in most periods of history in most countries. I do generally have a pet hate of talking about world war two , world war one and the british empire . Generally its been  done to death so much that my eyes start to glaze over , and so much bullshit has been spouted it becomes harder to seperate fact from fiction.



I have a particular interest though in both the continental and insular celts , from around 1000 bc to the reformation , scottish history as you would expect , and irish history.



Funnily enough i was reading an article by simon schama the other day , reffering to englishman samuel pepys and the plague in london , and i happened to think of you...









   

Samuel Pepys was always better at social than distancing. At the end of 1665, after bubonic plague had taken off a quarter of London's population, he wrote in his diary: "I have never lived so merrily . . . as I have done this plague time."

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Plague time: Simon Schama on what history tells us







   Samuel Pepys was always better at social than distancing. At the end of 1665, after bubonic plague had taken off a quarter of London's population, he wrote in his diary: "I have never lived so merrily . . . as I have done this plague time."



By December the great tide of death had abated but even as it had swept in months earlier, Pepys wrote of "the greatest glut of content that ever I had", adding, almost as an afterthought, "only under some difficulty because of the plague". He was a prosperous government official, member of the Navy Board during a maritime war with the Dutch; treasurer of the English colony at Tangier.



While Pepys had sent his wife downriver to Woolwich to escape the disease, he remained in London and continued to visit taverns and flirt his way through the evenings. He took what he thought were precautions, chewing tobacco and forgoing new wigs lest they be cut from the head of an infected body. On one occasion, "I met a dead corpse of the plague in the narrow alley . . . but I thank God I was not much disturbed at it."



But in the last week of August, more than 6,000 had died from the plague and Pepys' imperviousness to melancholy was under strain. The few people he saw, he wrote, looked as if they had "taken leave of the world". He moved amid Buriers and Searchers, often elderly women assigned the dangerous job of examining the dead for signs of the plague, carrying long white wands to warn people to keep their distance as they went about their gloomy work. It was getting closer. His physician and the waterman who ferried him daily had both died, and Pepys decided to make a will.

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https://www.ft.com/content/279dee4a-740b-11ea-95fe-fcd274e920ca">https://www.ft.com/content/279dee4a-740 ... d274e920ca">https://www.ft.com/content/279dee4a-740b-11ea-95fe-fcd274e920ca

[cromwell]

That pretty much sums matters up.



Indian independence in some form of another had been on the cards since the 1930s. And much of the rest of the British Empire was a matter of staging posts on the way to India. So much of the war against Japan was to allow the empire to be given to someone else.

 :hattip

[Borchester]

WW2 when this country was at it's best and worst really,destined to come out of it in a downward turn  but a selfless generation that reluctantly sometimes did what had to be done.

That pretty much sums matters up.



Indian independence in some form of another had been on the cards since the 1930s. And much of the rest of the British Empire was a matter of staging posts on the way to India. So much of the war against Japan was to allow the empire to be given to someone else.

[Borchester]

WW2 when this country was at it's best and worst really,destined to come out of it in a downward turn  but a selfless generation that reluctantly sometimes did what had to be done.

That pretty much sums matters up.



Indian independence in some form of another had been on the cards since the 1930s. And much of the rest of the British Empire was a matter of staging posts on the way to India. So much of the war against Japan was to allow the empire to be given to someone else.

[cromwell]

WW2 when this country was at it's best and worst really,destined to come out of it in a downward turn  but a selfless generation that reluctantly sometimes did what had to be done.

[Borchester]

Fair point, did they have pubs back then ?

Not really. They had ale houses and inns but the modern pub with its public and saloon bars was pretty much an invention of the mid 19th century.

[Wiggles]

Clearly the green revolutions of the late 17th and early 18th centuries can't compete with that. Still, I find them of a certain interest

Fair point, did they have pubs back then ?

[Borchester]

My favourite period in history was anything prior to 23rd of March, when I could play golf and go to the pub. Anything more recent is quite horrible

Clearly the green revolutions of the late 17th and early 18th centuries can't compete with that. Still, I find them of a certain interest

[Wiggles]

My favourite period in history was anything prior to 23rd of March, when I could play golf and go to the pub. Anything more recent is quite horrible

[Borchester]

I am going to cop out straight away and say that I don't have one. If the period is well described then I am interested. It is a bit like A J P Taylor's broadcasts. He would walk into the studio, look at the camera and say, "Tonight I thought we would discuss the Piedmont Hegemony" And I, along with millions of other Brits would think Piedmont, is that some sort of Italian bootmaker? But it did not matter because by then Taylor was ambling through his subject with us trailing faithfully behind.



Anyway, what is your favourite period?