1.A narrative of events; a story.

2. a. A chronological record of events, as of the life or development of a people or institution, often including an explanation of or commentary on those events: a history of the Vikings.

b. A formal written account of related natural phenomena: a history of volcanoes.

c. A record of a patient’s medical background.

d. An established record or pattern of behavior: an inmate with a history of substance abuse.

3. The branch of knowledge that records and analyzes past events: “History has a long-range perspective” Elizabeth Gurley Flynn.

4. a. The events forming the subject matter of a historical account.

b. The aggregate of past events or human affairs: basic tools used throughout history.

c. An interesting past: a house with history.

d. Something that belongs to the past: Their troubles are history now.

e. Slang One that is no longer worth consideration: Why should we worry about him? He’s history!

5. A drama based on historical events: the histories of Shakespeare.

(www.freedictionary.com)

Definition:

Although commonly used to refer to events which happened earlier in time, ‘history’ in academic study is either the study of the past or the product of our attempts to understand the past, rather than the past itself. (www.about.com)

A learning or knowing by inquiry; the knowledge of facts and events, so obtained; hence, a formal statement of such information; a narrative; a description; a written record; as, the history of a patient’s case; the history of a legislative bill.

A systematic, written account of events, particularly of those affecting a nation, institution, science, or art, and usually connected with a philosophical explanation of their causes; a true story, as distinguished from a romance; — distinguished also from annals, which relate simply the facts and events of each year, in strict chronological order; from biography, which is the record of an individual’s life; and from memoir, which is history composed from personal experience, observation, and memory.

To narrate or record. (www.brainyqoute.com)

1: the aggregate of past events: “a critical time in the school’s history”

2: the continuum of events occurring in succession leading from the past to the present and even into the future: "all of human history"
3: a record or narrative description of past events: "a history of France"; "he gave an    inaccurate account of the plot to kill the president"; "the story of exposure to lead" [syn:          account, chronicle, story]
4: the discipline that records and interprets past events involving human beings: "he  teaches Medieval history";  "history takes the long view"
5: all that is remembered of the past as preserved in writing; a body of knowledge: "the dawn of recorded history"; "from the beginning of history" (www.die.net)

The term history stands for three related but sharply differentiated concepts: (a) past human events; past actuality; (b) the record of the same; (c) the process or technique of making the record.

The Greek historia, which gives us the Latin historia, the French histoire, and the English history, originally meant inquiry, investigation, research, and not a record of data accumulated there by the usual present-day meaning of the term. It was only at a later period that the Greeks attached to it the meaning of “a record or narration of the results
of inquiry.” In current usage the term history may accordingly signify or imply any one of three things: (1) inquiry; (2) the objects of inquiry; (3) the record of the results of inquiry, corresponding respectively to (c), (a), and (b) above. (For a similar triple division of the general concept of history, see Aloys Meister, Grundzüge der historischen Methode (2d ed., Leipzig, 1913), 1.

It has been pointed out that the German word for history, Geschichte, from geschehen, to happen, means radically not inquiry or the object of inquiry, but “things that have happened”: history as past actuality.

History as knowledge, which is historical data as they exist in the mind and are material for record, may be recognized as a fourth use of the term. But history so conceived tends to become identical with history as record. The distinction between history as actuality and history as knowledge, is useful in analysis of the sophistical axiom that philosophy (www.questia.com )

The Problem of Error

ERROR IN INFORMAL SOURCES

Informal sources (remains) are always trustworthy in se. Error in regard to them is possible only in attempts to explain, to interpret, or to draw conclusions from them. Thus, frequently a mistake is made in the attempt to account for a phenomenon that results from some routine process of nature, or that occurs independently of observation. A skeleton may show traces of violent death, but whether by murder or accident or the play of some physical force, is a question it may not be possible to answer beyond doubt. So also a variety of causes may be invoked to account for the ruinous condition of a building–mere deterioration, neglect, deliberate wrecking, fire, earthquake. Any attempt to isolate the
true cause can easily result in error.

ERROR IN FORMAL SOURCES

Formal sources are the favorite breeding places of factual error in history. To trust them implicitly is to court all sorts of deception. On the other hand, to distrust them altogether, on the ground that criticism so often shows them to be unreliable, would be equally unreasonable. It is possible to know the causes of historical error in general; such knowledge is indispensable to the historian.

Two illusions in regard to formal testimony are frequently encountered. One, more common in past times than in our own, is that testimony given by a perfectly conscientious person must be presumed to be true; the other is that testimony given seriously and apparently in good faith, but later found to be false, must be regarded as deliberate
falsehood, or at least as proof of criminal carelessness. Experience belies both illusions. Conscientious witnesses, without being aware of it, can deviate from the objective truth; the possibility of unintentional decep www.questia.com