I don’t share your idea of an account of something interesting in the past being “junk”. History doesn’t have to be “important” to be of interest to many of us-it is a look into the past of other people in other places...
History is used to validate contemporary socio-political philosophy.
Even the sciences fall victim to this (remember the gay gene, climate change at its apex?). But in the sciences, you can still find where an objective, empirical, methodology was used to come up with an answer.
But things like history or the social sciences, which are interpretive, where we can pick and choose what we want to address (focus in on), tell us a story that nearly always fits the currents of contemporary times or whatever some subculture controlling that narrative wants to teach.
Can history teach us something? Of course.
But given American pop culture, the current fads that are important, you can expect lots of stories about female warriors, female run / led societies, homosexuality being normal in other societies, evil conquistadors and settlers, wholsitic and natural native American indians living in harmony with nature, bla bla bla....
Yes, “history” is mostly junk.