Hit Ctrl+R, type some letters, it will find the previous command with these letters, keep hitting Ctrl+R to continue through the previous findings.
Works in bash, zsh (and other shells i suppose).
What i personally like to have is: type some letters, press Up, the previous commands starting with the same letters appear. Very powerful, i love it.
You have to bind the keys you want to history-beginning-search-backward and history-beginning-search-forward.
In case it’s not enough for you, zsh has a lot of options, try to look in Zsh Line Editor and tell us.
For bash, less powerful but more common, Bash commands for history.