People make history, history makes people
People = a fluid set of persons, and can be one person. The singular usage of the word "people" is broken thinking.
History = a pattern of events in time and space. History as an academic discipline is at best a map, at worst a delusion. Only the history of academic history is actually history.
Why this matters ... to add to the history of people, through invention, political organization, or the organized subtraction of people (== war), it is helpful (though not always essential) to understand the prior history of those people.
To make server sky into a global pattern of events, it is helpful to understand the prior history of the people it will serve.