Studying the Hundred Years War (HYW, 1337-1435) for fun and found several common themes happening in relation to now:
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Aristocrats arrempting to maintain power
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Spread of disease from Asia
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Social unrest among the "peasants"
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Climate change resulting in colder weather and famine/social unrest
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People migrating to other areas. (In the HYW it was from the effects of Bubonic and other actual plagues.)
https://www.worldhistory.org/Hundred_Years'_War/
The bigger picture is that we are going through a natural cycle of change.
Resist the aristocracy and there will be changes for the better.
Pretty much.
Think maybe they did it every hundred years or so like with the Spanish Flu, just enough time to count out the last of the generation that could remember?
'Typically cyclical simple civil obedience' - sage francis
You can also relate it to the Cultural Revolution as well.