Looking at what is history and how to study history

History..........

There are a wide range of definitions of the word history (depending on context).

Dictionary.com defines history as.....

1. the branch of knowledge dealing with past events.
2. a continuous, systematic narrative of past events as relating to a particular people, country, period, person, etc., usually written as a chronological account; chronicle: a history of France; a medical history of the patient.
3. the aggregate of past events.
4. the record of past events and times, especially in connection with the human race.
5. a past notable for its important, unusual, or interesting events: a ship with a history.

The World English Dictionary defines history as.....

1. a record or account, often chronological in approach, of past events, developments, etc
2. all that is preserved or remembered of the past, esp in written form
3. the discipline of recording and interpreting past events involving human beings
4. past events, esp when considered as an aggregate
5. an event in the past, esp one that has been forgotten or reduced in importance: their quarrel was just history
6. the past, background, previous experiences, etc, of a thing or person: the house had a strange history
7. computing a stored list of the websites that a user has recently visited
8. a play that depicts or is based on historical events
9. a narrative relating the events of a character's life: the history of Joseph Andrews

History really is the telling of stories of the past. Every type of history allows people to tell stories about the past. There is a wide variety of ways to tell stories (we can use art, photographs, newspapers, architecture, magazines, oral stories, and many other forms of artifacts or sources). Every piece of information requires some source (a reference point).

There are also a wide variety of different types of history that you can look and study (depending on your purpose and depending on the questions you are asking) such as military, economic, social, political, art, women's or gender, crime, among others.

History is the art of discovery-asking questions and trying to find the answers through your sources and building on previous found answers (further studying can lead to interpretations). So to study history you must be critical, analytical, put on your thinking cap and act like a detective.

History is the telling of people stories (whether it is one individual, a larger group, a country etc). We must help tell someone's story and use their story to establish what this tells us about the world around them. A story about a stay-at home woman during a war would be very different story than a military man on the front lines but they are both valid and helpful stories that when combined together we can see a fuller/brighter picture of what the world as a whole was like during that time period.

We also can compare history to a puzzle- we are always looking to fill in the missing pieces that create a more well-rounded picture. Will we ever have all the pieces of the puzzle? Not necessarily but we can try to move towards a more complete picture. The advancements in technology have gone along way to allowing us more opportunities to complete stories and pictures of history.