History is a word of multiple meanings, all related to the past.

When used as the name of a field

of study, history traditionally refers to the study and interpretation of the written record of past
human activity, people, societies, and civilizations leading up to the present day. More broadly,
as explained in the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica, "history in the wider sense is all that has
happened, not merely all the phenomena of human life, but those of the natural world as well. It
is everything that undergoes change; and as modern science has shown that there is nothing
absolutely static, therefore, the whole universe, and every part of it, has its history." The term
history comes from the Greek historia (ἱστορία), "an account of one's inquiries," and shares that
etymology with the English word story.