Arabs Before Islam: Religion, Society, Culture

Kings and Generals: Before the rise of Islam in 610 A.D., Arabia was mostly composed of nomadic tribes called Bedouins, some of whom maintain that lifestyle today. They had "constantly shifting alliances, never-ending warfare, and rare occurrences of organized and centralized statehood. These tribes placed heavy emphasis on kin-related groups..." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07OsSSt0ytc&t=159s Religions were polytheism, paganism, …

‘The Dig’ — An Inspiring Story About Our Connection to Ancient History

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZQz0rkNajo Netflix: "As WWII looms, a wealthy widow (Carey Mulligan) hires an amateur archaeologist (Ralph Fiennes) to excavate the burial mounds on her estate. When they make a historic discovery, the echoes of Britain's past resonate in the face of its uncertain future‎. THE DIG stars Carey Mulligan, Ralph Fiennes, Lily James, Johnny Flynn, Ben …

The Caliph: Leader of Islam for 14 Centuries. Part 1: The Foundation

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3O9d7PsI48 Al Jazeera English documentary, Part 1: "For almost 13 centuries, from the death of the Prophet Muhammad in 632 to the overthrow of the last Ottoman caliph in 1924, the Islamic world was ruled by a caliph. Translated from the Arabic ‘Khalifa’, the word ‘caliph’ means successor or deputy. The caliph was considered the …

What English Historians Got Wrong About the Dark Ages

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3f21eVcY3pw Timeline: World History Documentaries: King Arthur's Britain. "Francis Pryor examines the relics of the Dark Ages to build a fuller picture of this much-maligned era. Popular belief has always held that the departure of the Romans led to barbarism in Britain, but archaeological finds have shed light on a cultured, literate society that embraced …

Early Anglo-Saxon Kings and Queens of England Were Originally Part of Germanic Tribes

Lindsay Holiday tells the story of the early Anglo-Saxons in Britain between 450 and 1066 A.D. The Saxons were originally Germanic tribes who migrated from Saxony and other parts of the European continent and developed the English language -- at least half the words in the language were originally Anglo-Saxon words. She asks and answers …

Who Were the Celts? How Did They Save Britain?

I like to think of my ancestry as Celtic as opposed to Roman and Anglo-Saxon. The Celts, it seemed, were not particularly interested in dominating others, not interested in building empires, but were very soulful -- musicians, poets, religious leaders, faeries, story-tellers. The Celts of the British Isles -- the Scottish, the Irish, the Welsh …

Iran’s Dramatic History Shapes Current Events

In light of international crises involving Iran, History Today, a monthly magazine based in London, zooms out over centuries and offers readers access to its archived articles on Iranian history. Among them: Return of the Ayatollah: Iran’s Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini became a lightning rod for the mass protests which overthrew the shah of Iran in 1979, …

Byzantium: Greco-Roman Eastern Empire for 1100 Years, Was Lost 560 Years Ago, But Traces Remain

Traces of Byzantium, the Greco-Roman Eastern Empire that dominated for a thousand years, can still be found in Turkey, Eastern Europe and the Middle East, as this documentary illustrates. It was overtaken by the Ottoman Empire in 1453. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byzantin...//Empire, from 395–1453 A.D. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_...Emperors. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byzantin...Architecture. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_...Orthodox Church.

Never Was One Arab Nation

A reader sent me a link to a map of the first "Arab Empire" that spanned from Southern France to Northern Africa to the borders of modern-day India and Russia for 300 years, along with a link to a Khan Academy lecture, the Rise of Islamic Empires and States, from 650 to 1450. This was long …

‘Dark Ages’ Weren’t So Dark, With 1001 Inventions

What if the so-called "Dark Ages" -- the nearly 1000 years from the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476, through the Middle Ages until the Renaissance -- did not exist? Actually, they didn't. "Dark Ages" is now an old-fashioned Eurocentric term that baby boomers and older millennials might have learned in history classes, …