In 1959, Havana was the epicenter of a revolution that toppled dictator Fulgencio Batista and brought Fidel Castro to power. This article explores the city’s dramatic transformation through primary sources, newspapers, and eyewitness accounts.
Drawing on eyewitness accounts, diaries, and official records, this article reconstructs how the British blackout of 1939–1944 plunged cities into darkness, reshaped daily life, and became a defining experience of the Home Front.
Drawing on declassified documents, personal memoirs, and official records, this article reconstructs the Cuban Missile Crisis as it was lived, reported, and feared by contemporaries—from the first U-2 photographs to Khrushchev’s secret letters.
Drawing on the archives of the Mapping American Social Movements project, this article reconstructs how underground newspapers from the Berkeley Barb to the Black Panther broke the media monopoly of the 1960s, giving voice to the counterculture and reshaping American journalism.
Drawing on contemporary reports, eyewitness accounts, and archival records, this article reconstructs the daily dangers, censorship, and moral dilemmas faced by the roughly 271 correspondents from 19 countries who covered the Korean War.
Drawing on contemporary reports from The Washington Post, The New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times, this article reconstructs the summer of 1989, when thousands of East Germans fled through Hungary and the Western press chronicled a crisis that foreshadowed the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Drawing on eyewitness accounts, memoirs, and official reports, this article reconstructs how the Battle of Algiers was experienced, reported, and understood during the Algerian War of Independence.
Drawing on contemporary records and scholarly analysis, this article reconstructs how the ÁVH’s shadow shaped daily life in Budapest before and during the 1956 revolution, from informants on every street to the agency’s violent dissolution.
Maps are among the oldest forms of human communication, and for historians they are invaluable primary sources. This guide explains how to analyze historical maps critically, what they reveal about past worldviews, and how to avoid common pitfalls.
Oral histories preserve the voices, memories, and perspectives of people who lived through history. This guide explains how to use them as primary sources, from preparation to analysis, grounded in best practices from the Library of Congress, Smithsonian, and Oral History Association.