Without an understanding of material facts and causation, history can focus on inessential details, and lead to broader misunderstanding of what happened. We look back to history to inform our understanding not only of facts, but of what effected them.
For example, when looking at layman histories of computing, I often find facts that are clearly irrelevant to historical progression being cited as if they were. For example, the prevalence of the RISC vs CISC architecture in the mobile era, which is really about intellectual property disputes.
A good history needs to understand not only the factual basis, but also needs to be able to weigh the relative importance of events, and understand the forces that shaped them.