Well, if reality be defined as only that which is empirical then I can tell you right now that most sciences dealing with the past, including history are not. Because one cannot run an experiment to prove that say, Tyrannosaurus rex could or could not run at speed X. One can extrapolate from bones but the scientists themselves are forthright that it is only inference and speculation at best.

And frankly as well scientists continually re-define their terms as per the scientific metholodology. But no society turns science into an ersatz religion instead of part and parcel of society as a whole. Religion meets an entirely different set of needs and the only sciences that blend over are the so-called soft sciences, none of which (sociology, psychology and suchlike) are really science in the sense that say, history is. The soft sciences make a conclusion and warp evidence to fit it.

History does not, but by the same token there is no empirical evidence unless it is in writing that say, Cortes was really motivated to raze Tenochtitlan for Jesus.