The way that Mesoamerica built their civilization in isolation from the old world is intensely fascinating (example: making farm land in the middle of lakes). The uniqueness in the way they extracted resources to what was considered valuable gives insight into the way humanity develops. The Mexica Empire/Valley of Mexico Triple Alliance/The Tenochca Empire/Aztec Empire is particularly interesting due it's success being derived from an abundance of practices already in place rather than innovation (they revved up everything to an 11). Their approach to warfare emphasizing one on one combat was dramatic. Finally their methods of human sacrifice are some of the most metal things I've ever heard to the point where I find violence in fiction to be banal by comparison.
There is some good long form documentaries on YouTube about this topic and a lot of the old History Channel content out there before it went to hell in a hand basket
"It's ya boi gobbledeznutz here's my 17 hour video essay on the first diesel battle ship and how it lead to beanie babies." Presented in PowerPoint maybe with a bit of total war if your lucky
And you watch the whole thing
Depends on how "popular" of a subject it is. There are plenty of subjects on Wikipedia that are not popular enough to have ever been published about in print.
Thankfully I'm avoiding most noisy university-sophomore politics in my content, whenever it pops up I quickly prune it out of my content feed.
Currently, the four main subjects on my watch history are particle physics, cosmology, Gobekli Tepe (and everything related to those ancient Taş Tepeler people), Sumerian cuneiform writing (courtesy of the extraordinary Professor Irving Finkle).
But to keep things on topic, I regularly have to block suggested channels and videos that start straying towards clickbait controversy, "Is Science Dying?" and "The Image NASA Doesn't Want You To See!", that sort of bullshit.
The goddamned algorithm, and those that feed it, it's mindlessly relentless constant mechanism, and I hate it, but there is so much treasure among the brushes and poison ivy one has to keep on hacking at, with the proverbial digital machete. There is so much legit gold in there.
Actively managing your algorithm and feed is essential to keeping your sanity these days. There's so much good content out there, but there's even more garbage.
Oh man, I LOVE that channel, written by Paul M. Sutter aka Ask A Spaceman, I've seen every episode, some of them twice. And that goes as well as its' sister channel, The Entire History Of Earth.
On the topic of pruning, SkyTube is a great way to enjoy YouTube with the algorithm completely disabled. SkyTube can be set to simply present subscribed channels, and nothing but subscribed channels.
I know that Hebrew does not have that many lone vertical lines. It's a joke, and I was expecting someone to follow up on it by making up a funny "transcript".
There's the odd rumour here and there of a TV series, which is where this series would be better than films if done right. But alas, these these rumours stay rumours.
The books are great but they're not really broken up into self-contained stories. It's more like one incredibly long adventure and the books just end when they get to a certain length and then the story picks up in the next one. A series would be perfect for that. Only problem is that it would have to be heavily CGI.
I really wanted to enjoy them but I just couldn't get into the first book. Between the naval terminology and my complete lack of knowledge of the geopolitics of the era, I never really settled into the narrative because I spent all my time trying to decipher what was actually going on.
Most of the naval terminology flew over my head. Ignoring most of it didn't impede me from understanding and enjoying the story. But I agree it's not always the easiest read.
You might like the Hornblower books more. Less politics and sociology of the era and more straight-up action, combined with some antihero introspection - like the main character obsessing about how small his calves are.
Don't forget pop podcasts hosted by "storytellers" who read one primary source and one outdated secondary source before writing 20 hours of content, mostly about how the generals and kings got ready for the battles.