On top of that, I'd recommend reading through r/AskHistorians posts. History is such a broad field, that it's overwhelming, and since it's so broad you find a lot of dry, broad coverage for "beginners". A lot of the folks over at AskHistorians are experts in their (sub)fields so you can find in-depth answers on small things. For me that helps make it "real".

Here's an example of one that stuck in my memory recently: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/5f86lb/what_...