History

History is the study of past events. People know what happened in the past by looking at things from the past including sources (like books, newspapers, scripts and letters), buildings and different types of artifacts (like pottery, tools, coins and human or animal remains.) Libraries, archives, and museums collect and keep these things for people to study history. A person who studies history is called a historian. A person who studies pre-history and history through things left behind by ancient cultures is called an archaeologist. A person who studies mankind and society is called an anthropologist. The study of the sources and methods used to study and write history is called historiography.

People can learn about the past by talking to people who remember things that happened at some point in the past. This is called oral history. For example, when people who had been slaves and American Civil War survivors got old, some historians recorded them talking about their lives, so that history would not be lost.^[1]

In old times people in different parts of the world kept separate histories because they did not meet each other very often. Some groups of people never met each other. The rulers of Medieval Europe, Ancient Rome and Ancient China each thought that they ruled the only important parts of the world and that other parts were "barbarian". But they were still connected, even if they didn't realize it.^[2]

The term "historically" is used to say that something has been a certain way during most of its history. For example, a historically female university is a university which has had a student body that was mostly or entirely female for most of its history.

1. ↑ "About this Collection | Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1938 | Digital Collections | Library of Congress". Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 20540 USA. Retrieved 2020-10-24.
2. ↑ "Silk Ties: The Links Between Ancient Rome & China | History Today". www.historytoday.com. Retrieved 2020-10-24.