Anyone who has studied history has been asked the question, “Why should we study history?” And he asked himself a similar question – albeit with a very different tone – “Why do I have to study history?” To answer these questions, we must first know what history is. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay What is history? According to Carr (1969), history “is a continuous process of interaction between the historian and his [historical] facts, an endless dialogue between the present and the past”. History is therefore composed of a historian and historical facts. To better understand what history is, we need to know what a historian is and what historical facts are. The Oxford Living Dictionaries define the word historian as “an expert or student of history, especially that of a particular period, geographic region, or social phenomenon.” The word 'historical fact' is not in the dictionary, but the Oxford Living Dictionaries define the word historical as “of or concerning history; concerning past events” and the word fact as “a thing known or proven to be true.” Through these definitions it can be deduced that the word “historical fact” means “a thing from the past known or proven to be true”. But is it a precise definition? Professor Barraclough (as quoted in Carr, 1969) stated that “The story we read, although based on facts, is, strictly speaking, not factual at all, but a series of accepted judgements.” History is not science. Historical facts are different from scientific facts: they are not verifiable and they are not objective. There is no way to recreate the past to prove or disprove its facts. There is no way to separate a person from their preconceptions. What then are the historical facts? There are infinitely many facts about the past, but only a few are considered historical facts: after all, history is not a collection of facts, and historians are not collectors of facts. It is only when historians agree that a fact about the past is authentic and essential that it becomes a historical fact. However, a historian's concerns are not the basic facts – not the who, where and when, which are facts. Rather, it is the whats, hows and whys – which require thorough investigation and interpretation of the facts to determine – that interest a historian. You are likely to get true and accurate basic facts from an original source, but the rest of the facts are unlikely to be objective. Take the Battle of Pearl Harbor for example. It is easy to find a source that provides the following basic facts: The Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service bombed the United States Naval Base at Pearl Harbor, Territory of Hawaii, on the morning of December 7, 1941. However, the answers to the questions: “What really happened?”, “How did it happen?” and “Why did this happen?”, is decided by the person being questioned. The Japanese would have justification for their actions, but the Americans would only have condemnation. Hungerford (1878) stated that “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” (p. 142) and the same can be said of truth. People believe what they want to believe, people perceive what they want to perceive. The task of a historian is to recall the past in his mind and, aware of the partiality of the original source, relive it through their eyes and not his. He tries to think what the source is, in the way the source is. He does this to ensure that his interpretation of the past is voracious. The situation is unfortunately ironic: the historian struggles to explain the past without partiality and without prejudice, but he himself does it – and is only able to do it – through his own prejudices and prejudices because he is,.