3 Great Examples of Historical Stories

The Historical accounts Are based on the practice of writing narratives taking as a starting point the events that occurred during the story.

They are distinguished from the narrative that writes about history in a purely analytical way, since historical accounts allow the inclusion of a greater or lesser degree of narration, in addition to the analytical or interpretative exposition of history.

Historical reports.  Old books.

Traditional historical accounts focus on the chronological order of history and tend to focus on individuals and on the actions and intentions carried out during the historical event.

On the contrary, modern historical narrative typically focuses on general structures and trends. A modern historical account would break with the rigid chronology if the historian believes that in this way it would better explain the historical event that is intended to be narrated.

Historians using modern narrative often say that traditional historical accounts focus too much on what happened and not enough on why and causality. In contrast, historians using traditional narrative might say that modern historical accounts overload the reader with trivial data.

Historical accounts are based on documents, accounting books, memos, newspapers, correspondence, journals, figures and tax lists. The use of these primary sources does not determine the historical narrative argument, but it does ensure that history is counted using facts as close to objective reality as possible.

3 examples of traditional historical accounts

1- The Great Migration

The great migration was the movement of 6 million African Americans from the rural states of the southern United States to the northeast, west and west from 1910 to 1970.

Driven from their homes by unsatisfactory economic opportunities and harsh segregationist laws, many blacks headed north, where they took advantage of the need for industrial workers that first emerged during the First World War .

As Chicago, New York and other cities saw their black population expand exponentially, these Migrants Were forced to deal with poor working conditions and competition for living space, as well as racism Widespread and prejudiced.

During the Great Migration, African Americans began to build a new place in public life, actively addressing economic, political, and social challenges and creating a new black urban culture that would exert enormous influence over the coming decades.

White population supremacy

After the Civil War, white supremacy was largely restored in the South, and segregationist policies known as the Jim Crow laws soon became the law of the land. The blacks of the south were forced to make a living working the land.

In addition, although the Ku Klux Klan (Homophobic, racist, anti-Semitic, anticommunist, and far-right American organization) had been officially disbanded in 1869, continued to intimidate, violence, and even execute Southern blacks.

Outbreak of World War I

In 1914, when World War I broke out in Europe, industrialized urban areas in the north, midwest, and west were faced with a shortage of industrial workers, and entrepreneurs attracted African Americans to the north, to the dismay Of the southern whites.

In the summer of 1919 began the longest period of interracial struggles in US history, including a disturbing wave of racial riots.

As a result of segregation, many blacks ended up creating their own cities within big cities, fostering the growth of a new urban African-American culture.

The most prominent example was Harlem in New York City, a neighborhood that was once all white and which in the 1920s already housed about 200,000 Afro-Americans.

Some historians differentiate between the first major migration (1910-1930), with about 1.6 million migrants leaving mainly rural areas to emigrate to the industrial cities of the north and the Midwest, and a second major migration (1940 to 1970) , In which 5 million or more people moved, including many to California and other western cities.

Between 1910 and 1970, blacks moved from 14 southern states, especially Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi, to the other three cultural regions of the United States. More settlers with urban skills moved during the second migration.

2- World War II

The Second World War Was a global conflict that began in 1939 and ended in 1945. It involved most of the nations of the world - including all the great powers - eventually forming Two opposing military alliances : The Allies and the Axis. It was the most widespread war in history, with more than 100 million military mobilized.

In a state of"total war", the main participants put all their economic, industrial and scientific capacity at the service of the war effort, erasing the distinction between civil and military resources.

Marked by several significant events that involved the mass killing of civilians, including the Holocaust and the use of nuclear weapons , Is the most deadly conflict in human history, resulting in 50 million to more than 70 million fatalities.

Development of war conflict

Hitler's invasion of Poland in September 1939 led Britain and France to declare war on Germany. In April 1940, Germany invaded Norway and Denmark.

In May, German forces attacked Belgium and the Netherlands until they reached the Meuse River where they beat French forces in Sedan. With France on the brink of collapse, Benito Mussolini of Italy signed the Steel Pact with Hitler declaring war against France and Great Britain.

Throughout the summer of 1940, German aircraft bombed Britain including night raids in London and other industrial centers that caused heavy civilian casualties and damage.

However, the Royal Air Force (RAF) finally defeated the Luftwaffe (German Air Force) so Hitler postponed its plans to invade Britain.

At the beginning of 1941, the German troops invaded Yugoslavia and Greece, conquer precursor of the true objective of Hitler: the invasion of Soviet Union.

However, arguments between Hitler and his commanders delayed the next German advance until October, when it was stalled by a Soviet counter-offensive and the beginning of harsh winter weather.

In the Pacific, at the end of 1941, 360 Japanese aircraft unexpectedly attacked the main US naval base in Pearl Harbor (Hawaii) claiming the lives of more than 2,300 soldiers.

After this attack the United States declared the war to Japan, and Germany and the other powers of the Axis soon declared the war to the United States.

The winter approach, together with the decline of food and medical supplies, put an end to the wars on the Soviet front in January 1943. In July 1943, the Allies invaded Italy and the Mussolini government fell.

On 6 June 1944, celebrated as"D-Day", the Allies began a massive invasion of Europe, landing 156,000 British, Canadian and American soldiers on the beaches of Normandy, France.

In response, Hitler overturned his remaining army in Western Europe, securing the defeat of Germany in the east. Soviet troops quickly advanced to Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Romania while Hitler rallied his forces to expel the Americans and the British from Germany in the Battle of the Bulge (December 1944 to January 1945), the last great German offensive from the war.

In February 1945, an intense aerial bombardment preceded the Allied invasion of Germany, which was formally surrendered on 8 May as Soviet forces had occupied much of the country and Hitler was already dead, having committed suicide on 30 April In his Berlin bunker.

World War II turned out to be the most devastating international conflict in history, killing about 35 million to 60 million people, including 6 million Jews who died at the hands of the Nazis .

Millions more were injured and lost their homes and property. As a legacy of war, communism expanded from the Soviet Union to Eastern Europe.

3- Fall of the Berlin Wall

On 13 August 1961, the communist government of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) began building a wall of barbed wire and concrete between east and west Berlin. The official purpose of this wall was to prevent the entrance of Eastern"Fascists"into East Germany and to avoid breaking the socialist state.

In all, at least 171 people died trying to pass over, under or around the Berlin Wall. However, more than 5,000 East Germans (including some 600 border guards) managed to cross the border.

This was achieved by jumping through the windows adjacent to the wall, flying in hot air balloons, crawling through the culverts and driving through non-fortified parts of the wall at high speeds.

The Berlin Wall was held until November 9, 1989, when the head of the Communist Party of East Germany announced that citizens of the GDR could cross the border whenever they wanted.

That night, crowds ravished the wall. Some crossed freely to West Berlin, while others opened holes in the wall with picks and hammers.

To this day, the Berlin Wall remains one of the most powerful and enduring symbols of the Cold War .

References

  1. Beevor A. The Second World War (2012). London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson.
  2. Buckley W. The Fall of the Berlin Wall (2004). New Jersey: John Wiley and Sons.
  3. Carrard P. History and narrative: an overview (2015). Vermont: Narrative Works.
  4. Lay P. The challenges of writing a narrative history (2011). Recovered from: historytoday.com
  5. Lemann N. The promised land: the great black migration and how it changed America (1991). New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
  6. Lepore J. Historical writing and the revival of narrative (2002). Retrieved from: niemanreports.org.
  7. White H. The question of narrative in contemporary historical theory (1984). Connecticut: History and Theory.


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