Ibn Battuta and his adventure
I researched this story previously, and it really is fascinating--especially as counterpoint to the stories of Marco Polo, a lot of which are, if not actually fabricated by the man himself and his colleagues[1], definitely "stretched" for truth to the extreme.<p>On the other hand, the documentation on Ibn Battuta's travels, even accounting for a large amount of historical skew, is informed by a lot more primary source material and other parties' accounts than Marco Polo's.<p>Because his writings are (in translation at least) incredibly accessible as stories, I've always hoped to see them getting assigned as reading to young primary school kids. A long time ago, I lobbied for that at some private/public schools in Colorado (and offered to help formulate curricula or engage with the material in after school history clubs), but because of some pretty blatant Islamophobia, nothing came of it. Ah well, boring, unengaging textbooks it is, then.<p>[1] <a href="http://www.davidmeyercreations.com/mysteries-of-history/was-marco-polo-a-fraud/" rel="nofollow">http://www.davidmeyercreations.com/mysteries-of-history/was-...</a>