Why you need knowledge of history?

Personally, I feel that I still need to learn my history to essentially know where I actually came from; discover who I truly am; as the previous poster correctly stated, perhaps learn from historical events and do not commit the same mistakes they have committed before; and ultimately reach my desired goal. By learning History, to my mind, I would be fully aware of my origins or the genesis of my country and my race. In other words, through history, I would be able to discover where I came from (i.e. evolution of my country) and how my race basically came into existence. In a way, it serves as the guiding light to my life's journey, especially since by learning History, I strongly believe that I would actual be able to discover my national identity or my inherent patriotism. Perhaps, through the study of History, and the valuable knowledge I would derive out of it, I would likewise effectively be able to explain better why my appearance is exactly the way it is, why we have certain societal beliefs, mores, or feasts, why our culture is precisely the way it turned out to be, why our country is globally recognized in a certain way or has developed a particular reputation, why other countries conquered us and ravaged our natural resources, and a whole lot of other whys I may have, which are yet to be answered. Moreover, as the first poster rightly said, by fully grasping the events in the past and carefully examining the historical mistakes our predecessors committed during their time, we could perhaps more easily prevent such mistakes from ever happening again at present. Lastly, I believe that by being knowledgeable about History, I would truly know where I truly want to go and eventually reach it. In our country, there's an insightful saying that goes, "Kundi ka marunong lumingon sa iyong pinanggalingan, hindi ka makararating sa iyong paroroonan," or very roughly translated, if you do not know how to look back from where you came from, you would not reach your destination. I personally appreciate and interpret this particular Filipino saying as a reminder that History plays a crucial role in ultimately deciding whether I would be able to reach my goal in life, since it is obviously replete with highly useful knowledge and sound wisdom that I could fully utilize in my quest to attain all the goals I have set out to achieve in my own lifetime. In the end, laurika, I could really only hope that my post could somehow help in clearly emphasizing the real significance of History; the need to learn it; and the need to learn from it.

The intangible values in the past are the journals for future life. I mean the human value. Because human in the past had same characters and attitude as today's human. the only changing is the environment and demography. So the learning process in human life always need an example or specimen or prove of action and reaction. That is the only reason why I need knowledge of history. And the life factor is 'Seeing Is Believing'.` I'm fine and thank you, LAURIKA. :::michael:::

We learn about history in the hopes to not repeat the mistakes of the past. I find history fascinating. I love knowing how it was back 'when', and how they solved problems, and built successful civilizations. It all evolves and becomes relevant once more.

I am always interested in the past and I remember when I was in college, my History teacher told us that we need to understand the past before we could understand the modern world. I think that's really interesting and is really true. I am always curious about how things were working before, the politics and stuff which gave rise to the modern world. And I am always fascinated by the evolution!

I am very interested in history, and I need more and more knowledge about our history. I want to know the biography of historical persons. thanks

I find your question rather naive, we are complex mysterious and intriguing beings, history can shed light on what we are how we came to be and what we have been, it can broaden our understanding of ourselves and people. I have this theory that each of us has in itself even tho it might be a very very tiny percentage of the first ancestor and they can tap into that ancestor only if they knew how lol. But history i think stands proudly shoulder to shoulder with philosophy physics biology and so on it just depends what u like anit but then the truth is stranger then fiction so if u find a good history book you might enjoy the wild fairytale of the past!

There are a lot of good things and bad things taken place in the history. It is nothing like your mother telling you the story of her time, history tells one saga of human civilization. It is a part of imparting the knowledge of our ancestors, our rulers, the tyranny, how the inventions and discoveries helped mankind in economic and social progress etc. It helps one to know what is good and what is bad. It also helps one to know why one should not repeat the mistakes already made by others in the past. It is a branch of knowledge tree and it is important in the sense help us to preserve our culture and tradition.

I know about history because I was a history major in college. (Long time ago) We need to learn about history because it keeps us learning from our mistakes. Keeping up to date with history, we can apply it to our own lives and make things work. Like I said college was a long time ago.LOL