ABC's Of History

History

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This article is about the academic discipline. For a general history of human beings, see History of the world. For other uses, see History (disambiguation).

Historia
by Nikolaos Gysis (1892)

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.^[1]

—George Santayana

History (from Greek ἱστορία, historia, meaning "inquiry, knowledge acquired by investigation")^[2] is the study of the past, specifically how it relates to humans.^[3][4] It is an umbrella term that relates to past events as well as the memory, discovery, collection, organization, presentation, and interpretation of information about these events. Scholars who write about history are called historians. Events occurring prior to written record are considered prehistory.
History can also refer to the academic discipline which uses a narrative to examine and analyse a sequence of past events, and objectively determine the patterns of cause and effect that determine them.^[5][6] Historians sometimes debate the nature of history and its usefulness by discussing the study of the discipline as an end in itself and as a way of providing "perspective" on the problems of the present.^[5][7][8][9]
Stories common to a particular culture, but not supported by external sources (such as the tales surrounding King Arthur) are usually classified as cultural heritage or legends, because they do not support the "disinterested investigation" required of the discipline of history.^[10][11] Herodotus, a 5th-century BC Greek historian is considered within the Western tradition to be the "father of history", and, along with his contemporary Thucydides, helped form the foundations for the modern study of human history. Their work continues to be read today and the divide between the culture-focused Herodotus and the military-focused Thucydides remains a point of contention or approach in modern historical writing. In the Eastern tradition, a state chronicle the Spring and Autumn Annals was known to be compiled from as early as 722 BC although only 2nd century BC texts survived.