Is there a wayback machine for HN?
I‘d be curious to know the top topics from 5, 10 or 15 years ago. May be wrong but i feel we have been shifting a lot in the last years ..
Yep, click the 'past' link in the top bar and you can navigate all through the history.
Search for anything at the very bottom of the page. It takes you to a more powerful search page with date filters.