historical vs retro

historical

adj
  • Of, concerning, or in accordance with the past generally. 

  • Of, concerning, or in accordance with recorded history, (particularly) as opposed to legends, myths, and fictions. 

  • About history; depicting persons or events from history. 

  • One of various tenses or moods used to tell about past events, historic (tense). 

  • Set in the past. 

  • Synonym of historic: important or likely to be important to history and historians. 

  • Of, concerning, or in accordance with the scholarly discipline of history. 

  • Done in the manner of a historian: written as a development over time or in accordance with the historical method. 

  • Former, erstwhile; (religious, obsolete) lapsed, nominal. 

  • Forming compound adjectives with the meaning "historical/~" or "historically" 

noun
  • A historical romance. 

retro

adj
  • Of, or relating to, the past, past times, or the way things were. 

  • Affecting things past; retroactive, ex post facto. 

noun
  • Past fashions or trends. 

How often have the words historical and retro occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )