Sympathy vs. Empathy

The difference between empathy and sympathy is an important one. Empathy may often lead to sympathy, but the two are completely different. Sympathy is having feelings of pity for someone after they have gone through something. Having empathy however, just means to understand what is happening to a person or a certain group of people, or understand why they do what they do. Empathy is essential to historians because when looking back, you must understand what is happening to people in the particular time period that you are studying, and why whatever event took place happened.