I should prolly clarify: I don't support slavery. I'm interested in the history of slavery in my country because it's the history of my country. I live in a country that believes in recording everything like an obsessive first-time father or a teenager in his basement with a web-cam and an overinflated sense of self worth. This makes for tedious TV viewing, but fascinating history. I think, and correct me if I'm wrong (Yay! New Comment System!) that the history itself isn't so much interesting, as the reasons the history happened.
I find that what I learned in K-12 was the actual history, the dates, names and happenings. It was not, in itself, interesting. The loose grasp that I have from that is what made it possible for me to start thinking about the reasons these things happened.
For Example: In the middle of the century, America sent troops into VietNam. Hundreds of thousands of people were killed or died. Then, America took all of the troops it could find back out of VietNam.
That's all well and good, but it makes it seem like there was a script. "Oh!" said America, "It's time to send people to kill and die in VietNam!" There isn't a script. There's just the reasons things happen. It wasn't time for Americans to be in VietNam. It built to that point because of the escalating cold war, the French retreat, and the VietNamese movement toward communism.
Relating this to modern history (I like that. It's oxymoronic yet satisfying), it's not like there was some cosmic telegram sent to America:
AMERstopINVADE IRAQstopSPREAD DEMOCRACY, XIANITYstopBLAME 911, TERRORISTSstopEXCLUDE UNstopYER PAL, GODstopPS HOWS THE KIDSstop
I'm just sayin' is all.