Got this idea from that biggest news ever thread.

What's your favourite event or time in history/one that you find most interesting? Eg. The world wars, the cold war, a revolution. Ancient, medieval or modern? Are there certain countries where you focus on? Why?

Almost all periods of history are interesting to me, but I've always found the Medieval period particularly fascinating. Hard to explain why, everything about it is cool. The cultures and aesthetic of that time, historical figures et cetera. It's hard to narrow it down to one specific event, but I enjoy the 13th century the most, mainly focusing on Western and Northern Europe, as well as North Africa.

China: Around the Warring States period, and from Tang to Song.

Japan: Heian, Kamakura, Edo

England: Restoration to 20th century

France: First half of the 20th century

Geneva: Enlightment

Amusingly, most of the torture devices from that time didn't actually exist. Sure, times were rough in the "dark" ages, but not like that. Most of that stuff was just propaganda made to give a bad reputation to anything that wasn't The Renaissance.

I actually like prehistory the most. I love learning about the lineages of the animals.

I like the time right after the Big Bang. It is absolutely fascinating.

I prefer the pre-Big Bang era, personally.

Yeah, I'm similar. For me, it's either my interest in fantasy that fuels my liking of medieval history, or vice versa. Though, we were never taught a great deal of medieval or ancient history in school, which is a shame, so I can only read history books on these (which is fun in itself).

Early modern is also great. I find Elizabethan England interesting, as well as the English Revolution/Cromwellian Protectorate. But I guess my favourite piece of modern history would have to be the Soviet Union, West and East Germany.

Well there's something interesting. Didn't know that Do you have a source? It's not that I don't believe you, it just sounds like something that'll be a fun read.

This argument about how dark the Dark Ages really were comes up a lot. I have watched that BBC documentary "An Age Of Light" (iirc), I didn't agree with it that much. It was pretty much just about art. It's possible to exaggerate both ways.

Cambrian explosion period is interesting, David Attenborough did a good series on that recently.

All that shape-of-the-universe stuff is great but hard to understand.

Another period I like is South America before the Inca.

Sadly, I can't find any decent sources. Only device that has any evidence of likely not being used in the dark ages is the iron maiden. Everything else isn't given as much attention. I also forgot I probably should take every fact Cracked posts with a grain of salt considering how poor their research can get. Easy to forget what is learned on Cracked is best researched further just in case. 1793 is one of the earliest accounts that have been found about the iron maiden, so it's likely that it was made for the purpose of exaggeration. It might have been a satire of some sort of odd art trend that we'll never know of. Wouldn't be surprised if the actual use of stuff like those hole punching things you use on paper get considered torture devices. They certainly don't look pleasant...