What is History?

History is systematically collected information about the past. When used as the name of a field of study, history refers to the study and interpretation of the record of humans, families, and societies. Knowledge of history is often said to encompass both knowledge of past events and historical thinking skills. Traditionally, the study of history has been considered a part of the humanities. However, in modern academia, history is increasingly classified as a social science, …

…the barriers between history and prehistory have thus largely disappeared. Today there is no generally accepted definition for when history begins. In general history is today seen as the study of everything that is known about the human past (but even this barrier is being challenged by new fields such as Big History). Sources that can give light on this past such as oral history, linguistics, and genetics, have all become accepted by mainstream historians.