Relevant, Making History Available: http://lesswrong.com/lw/j0/making_history_available/

To my former memory, the United States had always existed—there was never a time when there was no United States. I had not remembered, until that time, how the Roman Empire rose, and brought peace and order, and lasted through so many centuries, until I forgot that things had ever been otherwise; and yet the Empire fell, and barbarians overran my city, and the learning that I had possessed was lost. The modern world became more fragile to my eyes; it was not the first modern world.

So many mistakes, made over and over and over again, because I did not remember making them, in every era I never lived...