For others, history just seemed like a jumble of names and dates attached to events long over with and people long dead. What was the point of learning it at all?

They didn’t know then that history was one of the most important subjects they’d ever study. History is in fact very useful, actually indispensable, but the products of historical study are less tangible, sometimes less immediate, than those that stem from some other disciplines. Historians do not perform heart transplants, improve highway design, or arrest criminals. In a society that quite correctly expects education to serve useful purposes, the functions of history can seem more difficult to define than those of engineering or medicine. History should be studied because it is essential to individuals and to society, and because it harbors beauty.

Let us take a closer look at why history is important and explore why everyone should make it a point to study it in depth.