Obvious ways like advances in science and medicine notwithstanding.
Perhaps you would find this collection of essays titled "The Lessons of History" to be of interest. Note that it is distinctly unfashionable these days to believe that history (or histories, really) is anything other than our understanding of what has occurred in the past. The assertion that it has any inherent meaning, or lessons, (or that it repeats itself) are seen to be pedestrian misconceptions of the discipline.