I think those are two completely different things. Learning not to put your hand on a hot stove is direct experience, or cold hard fact as you said. You don't need to remember it perfectly, analyse it, or interpret it. Learning from history requires us to interpret events and trust the historical record. I know with certainty that fire burns but I don't know why empires rose and fell because all I have is stories written by the victors. My point is not that the past teaches us nothing but rather that the further we move from direct experience and into history, the more reconstruction and interpretation creep in.
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Indeed, you're right, and clearly humanity has learned nothing considering it's still on a path to self destruction. I can't wait for it to happen really, maybe a hundred years away I presume, because humans are a plague, a disgusting and filthy malady, upon this planet and unworthy of it.
Of course there's those who believe humanity is on the right track...the deluded.
Well Mr. G, when have you ever known me to be wrong?!:)
That's a good point indeed, you're the most right person I've not ever met.