I can answer that. YES. Why? Because "intellectual property" -- especially in such loose forms has copyright and patent have become is expansive. There is no check to it. A powerful holder of such an expansive grant to use of the Force of the State on his behalf -- which is what a copyriight is -- the right for Eisner, say, to call down the Federal Hounds of Hell on you, for viewing a pirate copy of "Steamboat Willy". Wait!
That's not enough of the analogy -- I beg you read on --
Walt Disney made "Steamboat Willy" in 1923. When made the limited duration of the copyright was then set in law as 14 years, with provision to request an extension at the end of that for another 14. Interpreted as a contract that grant would mean images others might produce or copy of Mickey Mouse returned as property of the owner of the physical item on which the image appeared in 1951.
Yet the Federal Government under sway of the forces of the near-nobility established by such "grants of title" by the State -- the legislature, the excutive and the judiciary, all three -- has magically transformed a "contract" between the government acting as agent of "We, the People" and the copyright grantee into something that can ONLY be construed to be a grant of a State Sovereign, and not an agent. That is NOBILITY.
"Steamboat Willy" and Mickey Mouse remain the sole NOBLE RIGHT of Lord Eisner and his Disney Corporation.
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And there is the GIST of it. By the ever expansive intrepretation of the copyright and patent clause, we have become Subjects of the State, and of the Nobles to whom the State choses to grant "intellectual property" to.
So YES, history can be and WILL be copyrighted. Such absolute power is not slack in finding its extremes.
Some historical works can be copyrighted, such as Steamboat Willy, but there are many others that cannot, like the works of Shakespeare.
As for historical events, a couple years back, a woman sued Steven Spielberg because she claimed the film Amistad was based on her book. Spielberg claimed the film was not based on her book, and the events that occurred actually did happen. A judge agreed, ruling the woman cannot own a historical event.