What's the difference between Fiction and History?????

I have only really thought about this question thrice really hard in my life. Once at the beginning of this class, the second time in class today, and the third time tonight. Firstly I would like to say that before this class I would have balked at that question. History and fiction are opposites right?! Well, not so much. While I definitely do not hold a viewpoint of history that states it to be almost the same as fiction like some people in class, I definitely think the differences are worth discussion. Now to the first time I thought about the question really intensely. In class, on what I believe was the first day, this was the prompt. When I first heard it I thought AH, easy. But when you actually start writing, it's a pretty tough topic. I mean, what really is the difference? It's hard to define! So many of the things that I believe to be history are simply just that. Things that I believe to be as history. They are just stories that I have been told and that I have accepted at face value. I am by no means trivialising the work that historians have done to collect evidence and first person accounts of historical events and compile them into an understandable story for the masses but on that same note, the only thing I have ever seen is the story. The basis of my trust in these stories is that I believe the history books to be peer reviewed and I wouldn't believe my teachers would knowingly lie to me. I guess what I am saying is that history needs to be taken with a grain of salt. You always have to remember that history is not fact; it is simply what we believe to be fact. This is immensely complicated and I haven't even scratched the surface of fictions role in all of this.
On that first prompt day, I said that fiction is anything it wants to be. It can follow historical evidence to the tee or go completely wild and have no bounds to anything historical. I can't say that This changed at all for me. I still believe that to be my best definition of fiction. Now to relate fiction to history, that's a whole different ball game.
There are many different ways that fiction and history are intertwined. Most all of the settings and events of fictional novels are somewhat based on historical evidence. Rarely will you find a novel where everything is made up and if it is, some of the themes will surely be borrowed from history. That's just natural, history gives us as a people a definition. On that same token, a lot of history is fiction as well. What I mean by that is the way history is conveyed involves fiction. Anyone can drone on and one about the boring facts and dates about history but at the end of the day, that's all they will be; facts and dates. What makes history real to us is the story behind it. The dialogue and the emotion that is by definition fictional. Historical reenactments are by no means completely accurate and contain a ton of fictional aspects to them. While history is important, the things that will stick out in my mind are the fictionalized lines like "let them eat cake!".