" but not knowing much of world history, I can't discern mistakes from truths. "

This is essentially the problem.Things like History memes, popular history, TV shows based loosely on history, historical computer games, etc, can be useful as an inspiration to go out and find out more about history. I first got interested in researcing history from playing Age of Empires as a kid; I knew who the Romans and Egyptians were from primary school, but besides having a vague idea that they were the bad guys in the Old Testament, I didn't know anything about the Babylonians, and wanted to learn more, so I went and got a book from the library.

Historical comedy, such as Memes, can engage people's interest in historical events, point out history they haven't learnt in school, and give a different perspective.

But there are three issues.

One is accuracy. These aren't memes produced by professional historians, published in a journal, and peer-reviewed; ie checked by other professionals.

Here's an excellent example I've seen a couple of times: https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/facebook/001/336/005/9eb.jpgOh, poor Copernicus! Brutally murdered by the Catholic Church because they refused to countenance his science! But there's two issues.

When Copernicus proposed it, it was not very controversial; it didn't catch on, but that was due to the fact that at the time it was unprovable, not because of religious persecution. And he died... of natural causes. No punishment. No excommunication... and definitely no burning.
The famous astronomer who did get burnt was Giordana Bruno, but he was burnt for rejecting Catholic religious doctrines like transubstantiation, the trinity, eternal damnation, etc. Again, it's definitely not okay to set people on fire for arguing with you... but it had nothing at all to do with his astronomical ideas.

There's also Galileo, who did get in a lot more trouble for it seven decades later... but he wasn't burnt either. Actually, he wasn't executed at all, he was put under house imprisonment. Pretty unfair I think we'd all agree, but saying he was burnt to death is a lie.

Yet many people see this and "know" that Copernicus was killed by the science-hating Church, just like they "know" that stupid medieval people thought the world was flat, and "know" that medieval people loved burning witches, probably due to how sexist and ignorant and crazy they were.

And of course, for modern Catholics this can be a cause of prejudice and hatred.Now don't get me wrong, the middle ages weren't a bastion of liberal free thought, but they certainly were not the brutal thought-tyranny of ignorance, racism, sexism and homophobia that we imagine (and in fact were generally less sexist, homophobic and racist than the 17th century).

The second issue is the focus. History tend to focus on battles, "great men", and Europe, with a side of China and Japan. Go look at r/historymemes now... how many memes are there are about social feminist history? How many about medieval Africa or America? No, it's great (male) conquerers, great (male) thinkers, big Empires, etc. That's not to say you shouldn't learn about these things, but it's only one part of the world. I'm British, of course it's sensible I learn more about British history than, say, Botswanan history. But then our British politicians go to India and are confused as to why the Indians aren't that friendly towards us. Because we learnt history from the British perspective, not the Indian perspective. We know loads about Ancient Greece, a place to which I've never been, but when I visited museums in Thailand I had no background knowledge at all about what was shown, because to popular history in Britain Thailand is pretty invisible. UK politicians can make references to ancient Mesopotamian conquerers (because that fits into a certain historical ideology of civilisation), but have very little knowledge of Caribbean history, where most black British people's ancestors come from.

America has just the same problem; most American 20-something men can tell you something about Samurai, ancient Greece, William the Conquerer, Julius Caesar, but almost certainly know virtually nothing about the people that lived where they live 1000 years ago.

​

The third issue is connected to the first; reductionism and lack of context.Look at this meme for example.

https://img.memecdn.com/what-a-change_o_2820063.jpg

Look how dramatic the change is after the Islamists took over! A modern liberal nation with miniskirts and stylist boots suddenly overnight transformed into one where the women are all wearing full burkas.

Now, these images are not fake images. But they are simply showing one group of women in Iran. The first shows women in a university in the capital wearing similar clothes to western women. But these women are actually not representative of women across Iran. In the countryside, and indeed amongst many women in Tehran, headscarves were very common.Again, of course the Islamic revolution was, in the long run, a repressive influence on women's clothing, but this picture is very reductionist, the reality was far more complex.

​

​

My recommendation is that you enjoy history memes, but remember their weaknesses. If you see something you don't know much about, go and research it! Start with wikipedia for the basics, then if you want to learn more move on to proper academic books.