It's certainly an interesting question, and as a response I'll link to (assuming it's permissible) this submission that I made in /r/badhistory, detailing my thoughts both on your question as well as the cliché that often comes from it—to wit, that those who don't remember the past are bound to repeat it. The inspiration of the post, as I note at first, was a post by /u/smileyman detailing a certain influential astronomer's hugely problematic account of western civilization, its advancement, and obstructions to that advancement.

its absolutely untrue. as the saying goes “No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man.” ―Heraclitus

even at the finest scale, local conditions fundamentally influence how events play out. That doesnt mean that things are -random-, simply unpredictable and influenced by factors that cannot be fully accounted for.