Hegel means something very specific by history, and he's generally right. Although there are very grave empirical mistakes, he actually considers tribes like Ashanti and Dahomey, unlike others. Most importantly, he never ties moral worth or potential to biological characteristics. My thoughts:

2) A friend of mine has written an excellent response to the categorization of epistemology as first philosophy, linked below.

Perfect.

Heidegger is right insofar as Being is unavailable for discursivity. It is precisely what undergirds it. He was closer to the truth than his contemporaries but his thought is plagued by unnecessary and at times redundant pathways. Below is a brief thought on his project I've written up a while ago.

If Spinoza was right about one thing, it was that “omnis determinatio est negatio”.

Furthermore, epistemology is not first philosophy.