There is no doubt that one cannot drive a car while keeping looking at the rear-view mirror, in other words to keep moving forward one needs to look ahead. However, looking back in general also has its benefits. In my view I wholeheartedly support the idea that learning about the past is valuable for those living in the present. To support my point of view, I will first discuss evolution of things, and then I will discuss mistakes.
Learning from the past helps us understanding the evolutions of things and can also give insights into the future. For instance, how have we been fully aware that global warming is occurring on Earth? Scientists used data over centuries to see the trends in Earth's average temperature, and these data clearly showed that the temperature is globally rising. Furthermore, the question of how life appears on Earth and how has it evolved cannot find an answer without interests in the past.
Moreover learning about the past is a good way to avoid mistakes previously made, or simply mistakes. In many domains there are records of everything that happened and that is worth to be remembered about. For instance in the aircraft's industry, after every crash there is an investigation which is made to know what happened, and results are saved and divulgated to everyone involved in the field. Information from all these past events shapes the way new aircrafts and pilot's trainings are designed, therefore mistakes or issues revealed by the investigations in the past are avoided in the future. Besides, knowing about the history of one's family is valuable as it can help to know about unknown relatives; thus it helps avoiding unwanted incestuous marriages.
In sum, learning from the past is truly valuable to the mankind. It shows patterns of our evolution and of evolutions of things around us that could impact us. In addition it helps avoiding mistakes. While learning from the past is of great interest, taking right actions accordingly is more than valuable. Then, we might ask why it is often remarked that “History repeats itself”?