>Is there a history area that contains old messages here somewhere?

Arnon is right, you may choose the "Go back in time and simulate a previous login". This will bring you a form where you can enter a date to retrieve all the messages from that date. It works like CIS except it's by date not by messages number. And, there is no limit here to how far you want to go compare to CIS.

You may also use the search option which will search in the entire table.