No offense to Muslims and their beliefs.

Tea does not appear to have been known by europeans before about the early 1600s. Yet the silk road had been operated by tea drinkers for centuries before that, bringing in a variety of luxury goods from Asia into Europe. Why was tea not in that trade basket?

My wife who used to work with llamas, among other animals, assures me they can be ridden by adults, easily carry packs, and are quite pleasant when properly raised. Yet, in everything I have read about their use they are never used for transportation either with teams pulling wagons or by being ridden. Am I just not aware of their use as a riding animal, or were they never used in that way?

Som background: My parents originally wouldn't allow me to major in history and made me major in a STEM field. I recently was able to convince them that history is a lifelong passion of mine and what I wanted work in the rest of my life.

Edit: I'm interested in quite a few different topics in history, but I really like Medieval and Age of Exploration history.

Edit2: I have about two years left until graduation. I'm attending University of Texas.

Edit3: Thanks for all the replies! The responses seem to vary from "Becoming a professor is really hard" to "You're destroying your future." I'm still going to continue my studies as a History major. If I'm unable to get into a decent graduate program, I can always fall back on programming or some other "office" job (I've had a few internships that should make me somewhat marketable even with a History degree.) Again thanks for all the help, you guys have drastically changed my view of what it takes to become a professor.

Why didn't Spain get involved in World War Two? Germany helped the fascists right, and if it were to invade France, France would have needed to spread it's forces even thinner..

This just came to mind.. When and how was it decided that the alphabet was gonna go a, b, c, d, e, f, g...? And when did vowels and consonants become a thing?

I understand they had greater power than most lords as they were there to control and extend Anglo-Norman power, but why were the areas they ruled known as the Marches?

What exactly defines Great Man history? For example, If I say that Chinggis Khan was the biggest reason the Mongol empire was incredibly successful in its expansion, am I being biased? What are some advantages or disadvantages towards studying history through the Great Man point of view?

Often times in movies, TV, books, and comics cops are shown eating doughnuts and sipping coffee. How did this become a thing and why?

How you feel the process of how history is presented in public school classrooms and in textbooks? Do you think that classrooms give an appropriate introductions to history as a subject in general? What other criticisms do you have on history textbooks?

I was in Mass today and was wondering in particular about the use of incense. It seems so ancient a practice that I was wondering where it (and other customs) came from.

Was one far more important than the other, or were the two both looming large in the minds of the Japanese leadership as they discussed the possibility of surrender?

Does anyone have good recommendations for books relating to the Nazi's investigations/interest into the occult? Not looking for anything specific, but I find the topic extremely interesting and somewhat under discussed in most areas I am exposed too.

Got a few questions.

My main question(s) is this: A reason often given for the break up is that the economic burden was too high, and having such a large empire was no longer financially viable. Is that true, and if so, why? What made it become that way and when (roughly) did it start to shift from being profitable to being a cost? Could it have become profitable again?

These are kind of bonus questions.

I know that post WW2 a lot of countries/colonies, were seeking independence, were there any who still actually wanted to remain in it?

And finally, what realistic chance was there of maintaining the empire post WW2 if there had been a strong desire from Britain to keep it?

Thanks very much.