Recently, changes made to the AP World History course have been met with controversy due to a reduction in the focus and scope of what was to be considered "World History," notably not having it begin until 1450 making it essentially colonial world history.

In light of that controversy, what does an ideal World History course look like? What events, civilizations and people are crucial to know about that might not otherwise be taught? And how much of it can reasonably be put in a single history course?

Put another way, what is the "history of the world" that everyone should be at least cursory aware of?

I know this is more of a meta question, let me know if it breaks rules.

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Beethoven named his 3rd symphony after Napoleon, and then when Napoleon invaded Germany he scratched out the name so hard on the original manuscript that it left a hole. Now the symphony is called Eroica.

Do we know if Napoleon ever heard the symphony? And do we know what he thought of having a piece of music named after him?

Who did Knights Hospitaller and Knights Templar fight in say 1297 or around that year? I currently think groups of them fought independently for I am not sure who.

Time: Peak Roman Empire (AD 117-395)

Place: Roman frontiers, campaign area.

After scouring 4 years of archive, I think I can ask a few questions which have not been asked much lately.

• How long (how many days) could an army be expected to move around while on campaign (campaign season, not winter), and how much time of the day could it expect to move? Was it custom to take breaks during the day or would soldiers eat meals along the way?
• Would a fortified castrum be constructed for every night of rest? Or only for multi-day breaks?
• Did each soldier have his own tent? If not, how many soldiers/tent (common footman as opposed to officer)?
• Title question. Brief summary of the average man's day.

Context: writing fiction, need plausible things to happen around my character while he's on march.

I understand that it probably varied greatly across regions and periods, but I'm interested in answers from whatever area and timeframe.
I am wondering about things like:

• Could anyone seek shelter or was it somehow limited or controlled?
• Where were those people housed?
• Would they bring their livestock with?
• etc.

I saw this post today sowing the evolution of the Latin alphabet. What caught my eye is the fact that many of the characters seem to be mirror images of one another, save for an extra line here or one less line there in each character.

When and why did this happen? Did it perhaps have anything to do with printing/reproduction innovations?

So he knew that he will be attacked by Harald Hardrada and by William the bastard and yet he tried to fight both of them.

Why such a decision?

It was such huge empire and I guess its hard to control. Did they have an inteilligence service?

If yes, how was it different from current intelligence.

Of the four assassinated US presidents, Kennedy was more or less killed instantly, and Garfield and McKinley died essentially of sepsis (which today one would hope wouldn't be the case).

In contrast to both of these extremes, Lincoln died the day after being shot. Have medical historians examined his case? Was his situation something that might have had a different outcome with modern medical practices?

Isn't this a myth? Maybe /u/Overunderrated knows?

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What does respect signify here?

In old books and such - I'm thinking 18th and 19th century here - people would sometimes switch or change horses in the middle of a journey. How the heck would this work? Horses are not fungible.

**Edit in response to one comment. I'm referring to the situation where one rider has a long distance to go, and mounts one horse, rides it for a certain distance, and then switches to a new, fresh horse that is found at some waypoint, leaving the first horse behind. If we're talking about the Pony Express, it's easy to guess that there's no trouble at all in switching from one company horse to another. But if it's a private individual, it would seem like a horse switch would involve quite a bit of bargaining at the very least to establish the differing values of two horses.

(There's one question on this in the archives, from 5 years ago, with no authoritative answer.)

One general sense I get from Iranian historiography is that Iran under the Ikhanate and Timurid dynasties are not really considered Iran in the 'proper' sense.

However it occurs to me that the distinction seems artificial: both states were founded by non Iranian conquerers who eventually adopted the local language and culture. If this sounds at all familiar, this is the same story as the Safavid dynasty.

So in contemporary times, were the Timurids and Ikhanates considered kings of Iran, and was the state they ruled considered by outsiders to be Iranian?

He goes on to say that chariots had an incredible amount of problems, they were time consuming to build, they were incredibly hard to control and they would easily get bogged down in mud. I can't help but wonder how effective these formations were.