The paper presents a realist perspective on the recent exchange in the Journal of the Philosophy of History between Adrian Currie and David Swaim on the one side and Paul Roth and Fons Dewulf on the other. The first part presents a critique of Currie’s and Swaim’s view that the past is not determinate and can be changed. The second part states a series of arguments against Roth’s view that events exist only under description. The third part discusses the ontological problems that Roth’s irrealism about the past fails to address.