I can not determine where the ipython is storing its history.

a. There is no ~/.pythonhistory:

12:49:00/dashboards $ll ~/.py*
ls: /Users/steve/.py*: No such file or directory

b. Nothing special in the python startup file:

12:49:07/dashboards $echo $PYTHONSTARTUP
/shared/.pythonstartup
12:49:43/dashboards $cat /shared/.pythonstartup
import rlcompleter
import readlinereadline.parse_and_bind("tab: complete")

c. BUT: i do have plenty of history available in ipython when I start it up.

So where is that history being stored?

UPDATE the answer from @Stefano led the correct way: here is the actual path

13:30:05/shared $ll ~/.ipython/profile_default/history.sqlite
-rw-r--r--  1 steve  staff  372736 Jun  3 12:48 /Users/steve/.ipython/profile_default/history.sqlite

If you want your IPython history in a plain-text file, you can export it yourself.

%history -g -f filename