BENEFITS OF HISTORY WHAT IS HISTORY: History is a narration of the events which have happened among mankind, including an account of the rise and fall of nations, as well as of other great changes which have affected the political and social condition of the human race. BENIFITS OF HISTORY: KNOWING OF ORIGIN:History tells us how things started, which helps us learn how they may end up and where we are now: it sheds light on both future and present, connecting all three parts of time.We can better understand the present and predict the future by tracking our origins, and comparing past patterns with present and future ones. There are timelessrulesconnecting such patterns, making them repeated throughout history, that we can apply to any past, present or future time, to better understand it. When history is recorded, it has the advantage of being easily analyzed and understood, more than the present or future that we areyetto record and analyze. AVOIDING PAST MISTAKES: We won't take a wrong route others had taken before, and we will change the one we are on now if it is wrong, and start looking for alternatives. We won't go back to wars, superstitions, injustices, or primitive instincts to live only by. Rather, we will cherish life more and use reason more, to make life better. LIVING A DIFFERENT PRESENT:We won't repeat history. We will try new things not tried before. We will stretch our lifespan to live more than one life, in one life. Our thoughts, plans and actions will change, as well as our dreams: we will plan for and dream of a different future to look forward to. COMPLETING PAST WORK:We should finish the work our ancestors had started. Many good works need long attention and time before they bear fruit. But the farmer may die in the process of sowing the seeds, watering the plant, or just before harvest time. If he did his part, we should do ours. We learn where our ancestors ended and we start from there, neither before nor after. REALISING PAST DREAMS:When nothing could be done, they dreamed. They dreamed about a better future that happens to be our present. It's time their dreams became a reality, since we have more tools they may not have even dreamed of. It's a shame to have great ideas and sufficient tools but no actions! LEARNING OLD SURVIVAL STRATGIES:With the little knowledge they had they managed to do many things, surviving in the harshest circumstances. We should learn those old strategies that we need sometimes, when technology/civilization fails us or is not available: Self-Sufficiency: natural heating/cooling; home-grown fuel/power/light; home farming/milling/baking/weaving/tailoring; home drainage/water supply; etc. Using bodyrather than technology, in communicating, learning, writing, drawing, counting, trading, swapping ... ; hand work; transport (walking, running, swimming ...); self-defence (martial arts, etc.). More interaction with nature: grazing, hunting, fishing; taming animals; making fire; shaping stone, wood, mud, iron ... More memorization: learning by heart, rather than depending on data-saving technology only. More imagination, rather than using multimedia which dulls imagination sometimes. More socializingand face-to-face interaction. ... Etc. RECLAMING LOST ADVANTAGES:Although the present is generally better, the past is better sometimes. The ancients' life had many advantages over ours: Less pollution and pollution-related health problems. Less people and overpopulation problems. More plant and animals, in quantity and diversity. More space: less concrete jungles blocking light, air and view. No pesticides, growth hormones, etc. (food was natural and organic). More sleep (9 hours on average, as records show). More exercise: people exercised more, naturally using their body for work, travel, defence, and entertainment. ... Etc. BONDING WITH ANCESTORS:Those who lived in the past are our ancestors who gave us the life we now have. They worked and suffered to keep life going and to make the world liveable for them and their successors. Historical records, genealogy and DNA can help us trace our roots back; but even without them, we are certain there is someone, somewhere, whose name we may not know, in every century and historical era, who passed life to us: one of our many distant grandparents. If we happen to meet him/her, even in records, we may be amazed how similar our looks, behaviour and characters are.They still live with us by thelegacythey left us. Every action they took is still having an eternal ripple effect; we may or may not see. They are dead now, as we will be later, joining them and becoming members of the "dead majority," while leaving the living minority to have its share of life. Learning history helps us accept death as part of life. MID TRAVEL:When we study history we travel to a whole different era withcharacteristicsdifferent from ours, giving it its unique character that cannot exist at any other time or place, made up by such combination of unique clothes, foods, arts, music, literature, traditions, holidays, social structure, etc. Mind travel is both useful and pleasurable, mentally and psychologically. Travelling to a near place or time is not as powerful an experience as that to a distant one. GRATITUDE:They accepted and enjoyed a life mostly difficult and primitive, compared to ours. So we learn to accept our life that is better by comparison.