There is unfortunately a great deal of truth in this. Much of what we call history is fairy tales for grown-ups. It refers to events done by human beings in the past, human beings different from us today only in having lived 25 years (the minimum cut-off for contemporary events becoming historical) from what is now considered "historical." This reality is too often missed and motivations are attributed to people in the past that are really more like those of bad novels than real, living people.

You're right also that history has a Catch-22 with what is considered "important."