I and a couple of friends of mine have 3 forums,
1. Warez; 83 000 users, with about 120 users online any time..and daily user count of over 5000 users.
2. Buisness; about 1500 users, with a daily user count of around 200 people (but dont count this one as its mainly work related and not really online related)
3. Game-Mod development(History) Forum : we havent really opened it yet fully, but still has 157 users, with daily user count of about 10.
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(the last one is the one I advertized here a while back, was interested in amount of people that would take a look.. '2' which is funny, but I expected that much)
Old rule, sex, warez and rock'n'roll are the ones that get the real attention on the internet.
SO having a 'history' forum basically it comes down to advertizing, just about anyplace you can, friends, etc.. and on boards you visit then eventually you will build up a comunity. It also helps if there is couple people working at it not one.
But before all that you need some content, that means something worth being in your forum for, so 200-500 posts made with just 'bla bla' and headings isnt going to interest anyone.
a last note, if you advertize in warez forums, as a rule of thumb, only about 0.1%-0.01% of the whole public there will be interested in anything other than warez.