“Need”? Depends on the level, and maybe not. It can certainly be helpful though. I particularly recommend in primary school teaching about the history of counti

“Need”? Depends on the level, and maybe not. It can certainly be helpful though. I particularly recommend in primary school teaching about the history of counting boards / abacuses, the history of trigonometry, and most importantly the history of logarithms (every high school student should learn rudimentary use of a slide rule). All three will help clarify why particular tools and notations became standard, and give insight into pre-electronic-computer science and engineering more generally. For anyone interested in the history of mathematics per se at the undergraduate level, I recommend Stillwell’s book, https://amzn.com/144196052X https://amzn.com/144196052X More important than “mathematical history” is to teach students some measure of physics/engineering alongside the mathematics, to help motivate concepts.