Yes, it is widely known that the Archduke’s assassination was a spark that ignited the fire that would become WWI, but it’s history so it’s all subject. The victors are the scribes!

What you may want to do is find a Wikipedia page on the topic of interest, scroll down, and read the source pages. These are usually much more credible sites, but you don’t have to go scouring the web to find them.

History is always biased…How could it not be, really. I mean, no matter where you get your information, if you’re reading about it, it’s not first-hand.

That said, I am just like you – I got a college degree without having to take world or U.S. history. My strategy for not being a history dunce is starting with Wikipedia for general info. Then when something sparks my interest I look for a book specifically on that subject. For example, the history of mathematics fascinates me (since I’ve taken many classes on how to do calculations but never on where they came from), so I found a bunch of books in that area like Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea. To me, chipping away at history like this is more interesting that reading one long book written in chronological order. I look at reviews on Amazon and Shelfari to determine whether the book is worth reading.

I hope that helps a little…

i think wikipedia or its official site , for example if you want know the history about http://www.nikelink.com you can visit the site and then check the about page, it will show us the details about the site including the specific history ,but as for me i prefer use Q&A ,there is always someone will answer my questions.

I love history. I had a history professor that said “All history is gossip” and taught a class from that perspective. I’ve found it helpful to pick a time period or an event, and read in-depth about it. Because time is on a continuum, an event in history is influenced by events that came before it, and influences events that came after it. For example, WWI is the first war where mechanized and chemical warfare was used in a wholesale manner against men on horses. War took on a horrific nature that, although war was always brutal, was shocking. That, coupled with the influenza epidemic that followed, decimated a generation. More people actually died in Europe and the US of influenza than were killed in WWI. The recovery from the aftermath of all that death led to the Roaring ‘20s, which among other things, had profound influence on music, writing, and art. The terms of settlement from WWI, coupled with the aftermath of the stock market collapse in 1929, led to WWII.

Wikipedia can give you immediate answers to questions about events, but there’s lots to read in books. I personally like reading diaries, letters and newspapers from various time periods. Also It gives you a feel for the time period. You can also get at a lot of interesting information using Google Books and Google Scholar.

Wikipedia is a great place to start and major events, geographies, and cultural movements are usually very well covered and vetted by experts.

I agree with PandoraBoxx thought that books are the way to go. You’d hate to miss Caro’s biography of Lyndon Johnson, or social histories like Montaillou or Albion’s Seed or Sugrue’s Origin of the Urban Crisis or Burrows and Wallace’s Gotham. Or Mattingly’s Armada, or Judt’s Postwar or Philbrick’s Mayflower or McPherson’s Battle Cry of Freedom or or… Too much fun.

If you’re looking for more on a topic that interests you Wikipedia bibliographies seem to me uneven (or partisan), but you can get a few pointers. Amazon is a good place to prowl and of course you can ask a historian.

Whatever you do, it’s a wonderful area to read and history is important as a perspective-changer whether it can ever be accurate in an ultimate sense. You’ll learn to see historian’s slants and interests, but more importantly I think you’ll increasingly get a sense of who’s really trying to be fair, accurate, or insightful. Books like the ones above are good starts and there are many many more. I hope you enjoy what you find. And what you find out.