you cannot possibly do any higher level of analysis of any subject if you dont even know the base facts. its the equivalent of saying you dont need to know your times tables to do physics. Like, theoretically its possible to look up 4x6 every time you need to do arithmetic but why would you not just memorize it.

If you dont even know that the american civil war ended in 1865 how could you do any meaningful analysis on its downstream implications or causes and its relationship to other events.