Update Where Current Of

I have a table I need to update called employee_history. It has almost the exact same values as another table called Employee. The difference being that the employee_history has a start date and end date. So it allows you to have overrides in the future. The employee table is static. So it only allows you to see the current data as of today.

I need to write an insert statement that will pull values from employee table and populate the employee_history table but I also have columns in the employee_history table that requires a next value and a start and end date.

From the employee table I want to select e.emp_id, e.emp_firstname, e.emp_lastname, e.shftpat_id, e.client_id from employee e

I want to INSERT INTO EMPLOYEE_HISTORY (EMHIST_ID, EMPHIST_START_DATE, EMPHIST_END_DATE, EMP_ID, EMP_FIRSTNAME, EMP_LASTNAME, SHFTPAT_ID, CLIENT_ID)

with the VALUES being (SEQ_EMPHIST_ID.nextval, TRUNC(sysdate), 01/01/3000 and the employee data from the employee table)). I bought the book Easy Oracle PL/SQL Programming but I am not finding what I need. It gives an example of a CURSOR FOR UPDATE and a reference to an UPDATE WHERE CURRENT OF.

The examples are straight forward where you take two columns from table one and update a new table with those values, or where you select a subset of employees that need a commission and update the emp table with that commission.