They don't in many countries in the world as per today

Warring states was before Han, 3 kingdons afterwards

Niniveh by the Babylonians (100k), Rome by Alaric (500k), Ctesiphon by the Arabs (500k), Bagdad (1M) by the Mongols were the largest cities in the world when conquered.

Niniveh and Babylon were razed, in Rome and Ctesiphon the sacks wasn't that bad.

https://youtu.be/-6Wu0Q7x5D0

Sone details here and there are wrong but I would say 90% of it is correct

If you want to stay with Byzantium, Totalus Rankium is currently in 1330, you can just pick up after Manuel's death. It's really good, but keep in mind that it's a comedy podcast and that in order to make it funnier they take primary sources at face value (although overall it's still pretty accurate, just not as nuanced as Robin's).

Yes this is ok. Although reading some summary of the world's (or country/region) history wouldn't hurt to better understand the context of things.

That may be Byzantine influence, they had been refering to westerners as Franks since Charlemagne.

If you want a pattern with Cordoba, Byzantium is the answer.

10th century: Golden age for both (Caliphate/Macedonians)

11th century: Big crisis (Fitna/Manzikert)

12th century: Partial recovery (Almoravits&Almohades/Komnenians)

13th century: Bigger crisis (Navas of Tolosa and New Taifas/4th crusade and Frankocratia)

14th century: Survival despite the odds (Granada/Palaiologos)

15th century: Final fall (Fall of Granada/fall of Constantinople)

Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island from 1883 is the origin of most Pirate tropes.

The first crusade came mostly from France.

At the time, the king of France had very little power outside of his limited realm around Paris, so the country didn't very much work at all as a "unit" (talking in late medieval terms here), for France this wouldn't start happening again until about a century later.

If something it probably made things a bit easier for the king of France.