Archiving objects

I'm new to the whole archiving and I don't understand what the difference is between "history" and logging (or traces, either).

I have a basic question about archiving. When it states you can archive "history", what does that mean. Is that the information you get from SXMB_MONI? Or, is that data stored somewhere else. Is the logging data what I see in SXMB_MONI? If I delete the history can I no longer see what is in SXMB_MONI? I'm confused about these archiving objects. Thanks in advance.