Why is history important? Or is it? Explain.?

Question

We went over this question in class; I was seriously disturbed by my classmates' response, which was... simple-minded and lazy, to say the least. So I'm curious; what's your opinion?

Answer 1

Listen to David B.

The famous maxim explains it:  Those who fail to study history are bound to repeat it.

Answer 2

history told us what happend to the dinosaurs, why they became extinct. history is what we learn from and can hopefully correct from mistakes we have made, history is very important, for many many different reasons

Answer 3

Well, there's two primary reasons, that I see:

1. To learn the lessons of the past, so to repeat the successes and avoid the failures of those who came before.

2.  To properly understand the modern world; it's necessary to understand the past, to know how the present came to be.

Answer 4

It is a key to define our present and future in some cases, I think. If we didn't know about Christopher Columbus. We would never know that he was actually looking for India but found America by mistakes and he called Native American "Indians" because he though he was actually in India!!