Hello,
To write a history of Minetest, we could start by people who know the history of Minetest posting a reply to this post.
There may be a need for some history of Minetest, before all of it is forgotten or lost. For example, I didn't know what mese was or why it was named that. I looked and could not find out. About a whole year later, I randomly noticed that VanessaE mentioned "Although we all know about the instant messenger joke, Mese is now considered to be a crystal of alien origin" on this page: viewtopic.php?id=4154
I looked up that info and couldn't find any record of that particular instant messenger discussion. Today I tried again, finding this IRC discussion: http://irc.minetest.ru/minetest/2014-07-26 which mentioned c55's game blog, leading me to instead searching using a google site search on celeron55's blog and found this: http://c55.me/minetest2/wiki/doku.php?id=mese
Of course, this is only one piece of Minetest history that is only known to insiders. Perhaps adding a "History" section to http://wiki.minetest.net/Main_Page would be helpful, including named anchors such as "Unique Gameplay Elements" which could include a 3rd-tier subsection named "Mese" and contain the info above and when it became part of minetest game (around Dec 20, 2012 according to the forum post above) and perhaps any more info about mese's origins and who contributed ideas about it if anyone knows.
I like the idea of Minetest mods and even api having unique features that make it better or even just unique, and most core developers and established mod developers seem to share this type of viewpoint. Having a section like this on the wiki could encourage other people to contribute history before it is lost. Knowing Minetest's history may even provide a subtle continuity to Minetest development, since knowing history behind subtle memes like "mese" and why nyan blocks were added would help introduce newcomers to Minetest culture. Knowing minetest culture may help new contributors enjoy Minetest for what it is instead of just wondering why minetest isn't more like other sandbox games and continually trying to push development of mods toward being like other sandbox games. Though minetest is still in heavy development and minetest_game doesn't have much variety, that doesn't necessarily mean that the solution is to add features that are completely copied from other sandbox games. Perhaps the new features could be more unique and connected to Minetest culture even if vaguely, providing some continuity.
If you know any history of Minetest (such as details about its relationship to minetest-c55, and the story behind Nyan blocks), please reply to this post with your stories (please provide sources if possible).