We discussed the Philosophy of History. The lecture by Professor Anton van Niekerk at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LliDCK5Smbs was helpful.  His thesis was that history is about humanity and significant , i.e. out of the ordinary events, and that these events are to be explained by getting into the minds of the people who caused them. There are natural disasters, and good or bad luck can play a part, but the intentionality is key to history.  There are no natural laws as there are in science.  We realised that we are - or soon will be - part of history, and - there is no Aristotelian place to stand outside history - our explanations are stories, and the stories depend on our viewpoint now and the aspect and scope of events that interest us, so they can change over time.  It was interesting to hear van Niekerk link these ideas to the ending of Apartheid. The Stanford Encyclopaedia entry on Philosophy of History at https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/history/ led us to consider the objectivity of history.  We discussed historical novels: these are of course fiction, but held together by real events that happened, and they can help the reader understand the events and the people and their society and culture surrounding these events.  But actual history has to seek evidence for what happened and how the key players or groups responded..  Oral history has its place, but the boundary with myth can be unclear.