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How, When and Where?
History (from Greek ìστορία, historia, meaning events, even important ones, quickly disappear
“inquiry, knowledge acquired by investigation”) from human memory. Our lives today seem very
is the study of the past as it is described in written different from the past, but there are many things
documents. which have not changed for example, games like
Events occurring before written record are chess and wrestling which were played centuries
considered prehistory. It is an umbrella term that ago are still played today.
relates to past events as well as the memory, Importance of History
discovery, collection, organisation, presentation, 1. History is a store-house of wisdom of the
and interpretation of information about these past and the sum-total of the experience of
events. Scholars who write about history are our ancestors including the incidental
called historians. discovery of fire.
History can also refer to the academic discipline 2. It informs us about the evils that have been
which uses a narrative to examine and analyse a prevailing in the society such as slavery,
sequence of past events and objectively deter- racial discrimination, hunger, poverty,
mine the patterns of cause and effect that deter- disease, illiteracy, imperialism, etc. It also
mine them. tells us as to how man has been trying to
BASIC FEATURES OF HISTORY fight against these evils in order to get rid of
1. Historical knowledge must be based on these for human society.
evidence (evidence literally means ‘that 3. It enables us to accept diversities of races,
which has been seen’). languages, religions, culture, etc. as the real
2. History is not just one story, but several. one. History gives us the message of mutual
3. Everything must be looked at in a critical tolerance and respect for each other.
way, to check for any errors. Historians try 4. It generates a feeling that the whole human
to find out not only what happened, but race is one family and there exists a brother-
why it happened. hood among men.
The word “history” has many meanings. It is an How Important are Dates?
account of past events, in sequence of time; it is Have you ever thought why the dates are so
the study of events, their causes and results; and important? Remembering dates is not an easy
it is all that is preserved or remembered about job. Moreover, it is not even an interesting task
the past, especially in written form. For evidence, for many of us, but have you ever thought why
historians use written accounts, artefacts such as we need to remember dates or why we should
weapons and tools and oral or spoken accounts. study history?
To remember something, people write it down, Well, anything which we see happening in our
or commemorate it in some way. This is because surrounding must have begun on someday. For
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