GG Julie Payette: It is important to keep all the elements of the story. The good shots, like the hard shots.

The study of history teaches us to think critically. To look about the past, to understand the present, so we can do and work for a better future. It’s perhaps the most factual and actual of all studies.

Whether you teach history, whether you write about history, whether you share and communicate history, history is always relevant. Particularly in today’s fast paced world, where information is everywhere. We’re bombarded, and it’s starting to get harder and harder to differentiate truth from untruth.

In this context of rapid change, the study of history is more important than ever. To tell it with verifiable facts, rigorously, and to communicate it accurately.

This rigour, this engagement of you, history teachers, scholars, curators, students, and history buffs, become more relevant than ever and more important than ever.