say I have a Salesforce object like an Opportunity or an Account. Is there any way to view the history of that object (what changes have been made and by who)? I am an admin on this org.
Sure. You can set certain fields to be tracked, and see the changes over time in the History related list for the object. Take a look:
https://help.salesforce.com/articleView?id=tracking_field_history.htm&type=5
