If you want to learn useful history, DO something. Find a re-enactor’s group and join, and learn the things you need to know to fit in. Society for Creative Anachronism, Civil War, Revolutionary War, buckskinners – they all need to learn a whole corpus of stuff about their particular period and interest.
I was in the SCA. I learned to cook medieval food, to sew medieval clothing, to do some blacksmithing, to make some of the musical instruments of the day and play them. And you would positively enjoy hearing Henry VIII or Edward II treated as gossip instead of battles.
I have friends who do circa 1850 – they’re re-enactors at Fort Snelling. He’s become a blacksmith, and she is a good enough seamstress that she’s earning much of the family income doing 1850s clothing.
And best of all, most the time you don’t have to sit down, shut up, and listen. Except when the King is speaking, of course, but that’s a history lesson too.
