Think Like a Historian

1. Think Like a Historian World Regional Studies

2. What is a historian? • A historian is a detective • They gather various sources (usually primary) and ask questions about them • They look at those sources and try to determine what happened • Must have multiple sources to determine what happened

3. How do they do it? • Five steps to thinking like a historian • First: Sourcing • Second: Contextualization • Third: Close reading/viewing • Fourth: Corroboration • Five: Rinse and Repeat

4. Step 1: Sourcing • Questions to answer: • Who created it? • Why was it created? • When was it created? • Is the source believable? Why or why not? • This step gives us insight into the creator

5. Step 2: Contextualization • Questions to answer: • What was happening at the time of creation? • What was it like to be alive at this time? • What things were different back then? • What things were the same back then? • This step puts the document in a bigger “frame”

6. Step 3: Close Reading/Viewing • Questions to Answer: • What claims does the author make? • How does this document make me feel? • What words/phrases does the author use to convince me that he/she is right? • What information is left out? • This step allows us to evaluate the document

7. Step 4: Corroboration • Questions to answer: • What do other pieces of evidence say? • Am I finding different versions of the story? • What pieces of evidence are most believable? • This step allows us to figure out what is “true”

8. Historians think like a detective and write like a journalist!

9. What happened on 9/11?

13. September 12, 2001 I was at work when the two planes hit the Towers yesterday. My office, 2 World Financial Center, is/was on the 24th floor and faced the Towers from across West Street (the west side highway). I was at my desk when the first plane hit. We shook a bit in our seats but didn't know what happened. I ran to the window and looked down; I thought it was a car bomb (like in 1993). I saw a parking lot that had a variety of things on fire. People started screaming about the tower (this was about 45 seconds after impact). I ran to the other side of my office and saw fire raining down. Parts of the building was falling and on fire along with paper and other things. We had to look way up because the plane hit in the higher floors. The impact hole was huge -- it looked like 10 stories were burning. The fire seemed to crawl around the tower. The winds were so high it caused the smoke to spin in a large swirl. It is hard to describe how the building looked from my angle. You just couldn't believe what you were seeing. At that point we didn't know exactly what happened. About a minute after the crash was reported by the news our phone started ringing. Everyone called their wives, husbands, and friends and said: "Did you see what happened?!?" "No, it wasn't us." "Yes, we know people." I was walking around the desks at my office when the other plane hit. It felt like a big earthquake. I stumbled with the hit. People started yelling. One man in my office saw the plane go in and screamed it was another plane. We ran again to the window. This time it was much lower in the tower and seemed worse than the first because it was so much closer to my office. People on the street could feel the fireball. My manager started yelling -- "Everybody get the fuck out! Everyone get out NOW!" I grabbed my bag, palm pilot and my juice and headed for the stairs. 24 floors isn't that bad; they were full of people. Some were very upset, a few were panicky. We got to the winter garden (lobby) and headed out to South End Street (parallel to the river). I walked out and just saw a crowd staring up at the burning Towers. It was surreal this is the only word that can be used to amply describe the scene. I stood there for a minute and watched the fire climb up, down and around the towers. I heard sudden cries from the crowd and looked up and saw people falling/jumping to their deaths. And I wish I could say there was only one. It got worse as the fire spread. I then moved next to the marina and watched a bit more. Trying to call anyone proved almost impossible. I left messages for my immediate family and lent my phone to two guys who had to call their wives. I then started walking up the West side highway with the rest of the refugees. And I mean refugees. People carrying odd stuff crying, shaking and in total shock. I could only find 4 people from my office. Fortunately all were OK, but every got separated when we headed for the exits. I then came upon a guy with a telescope aimed at one of the towers. The picture I will never forget. At about the 60-70th floors, people were hanging out windows trying to get air. Literally holding onto the side of the building waving a T-shirt to try to get someone's attention. I couldn't watch any longer. I kept walking, and about 10 minutes later I was about a half mile away and was talking with someone and we heard this sound that can only be described as a "thundering crack." That is the best I can do. I then saw what I thought was just a chunk of the WTC but it was actually the whole tower. I said it wasn't ... I couldn't believe it ... With the first collapse people started running from the wall of smoke, dust and ash that erupted. The running wasn't very panicked, which helped. I then went to a car on the side of the road with about 15 other New Yorkers -- it was a true melting pot: a punk, few suits, office men and women, odd workers, truck driver, secretaries etc. That is when I learned about the Pentagon and the hijacking. Walking home I heard that "crack" again. I ran to corner to catch the second plume of smoke and debris from the second tower collapsing. I stood there for a while in utter shock and disbelief. Then I took the long walk home. The city was closed. The streets were crowded with people and emergency vehicles and that was it. After walking home, I ended up rollerblading from my apartment up to my parents' place (about 5 miles). It was so quiet -- thousands of people were just walking home from everywhere, the silence was deafening. I even tried to give blood at four different locations, but they were overloaded with volunteers. One of the hardest parts was trying to call people. Both land and cell lines were overloaded and failing. By today (12th) I was able to get in contact with most people. I finally gave blood -- it took 5.5 hours. As of now, my office building is still standing, but I believe our windows were blown out and the office heavily damaged by debris from the collapse.  Written by Adam Oestreich, Merrill Lynch employee at the World Financial Center

14. September 11, 2001 12:45pm I wish I was writing many of you under better circumstances, but as many of you know, I am an employee of Lehman Brothers in NYC and my office is located at 1 World Trade Center (the one with the antenna) on the 38th floor. I had been at the office since 6:45am because of meetings, and yes, I was in the building when it all happened.Sincemany people are trying to ask me what happened, I figured that I should write everyone in one email so that not only do you know that I am alive and physically unharmed, but so that you can hear my experience as a first-hand witness.First, I must say that this is by far one of the most disturbing days of my life. I have seen some things today that no person should ever have to see. Tuesday mornings I have a meeting at 7:30am in the neighboring World Financial Center building (where I used to work when I was with Merrill). I had just come back and was sitting at my desk for about 10 minutes before I heard and felt the first attack. The sound of a thunderous BOOM was heard with the jostling and swaying of the WTC 1 building. The feeling was something akin to someone grabbing you by the shoulders and swinging you back and forth a few times. Startled by this, I looked out the window just a few feet away to see glass, thousands of sheets of paper and large metal pieces raining down from above. My first reaction was that the top of the building blew off by some gas explosion or that a plane or helicopter had clipped the top of the building. Wanting to go closer to the window and look out, the better of my senses came about and I grabbed my wallet, keys and Palm Pilot (they were right in front of me) and ran to the emergency stairwell. It's funny how nobody really knows where the stairwell is until something like this happens.Asmentioned above, I am on the 38th floor. It took me 20 minutes to get down. The stairs are only wide enough for two people abreast, and several times the flow of person traffic stopped. Around the 20th floor, we started seeing lots of smoke. Around the 9th floor, the firemen, running up the stairs, passed by with the look of uncertainty in their eyes... water started rushing down the stairs like a river a few floors further below. At this point, nobody knew what was going on. The temperature in the stairwell was rising due to the amount of people trying to get out, and the sounds of men and women getting nervous didn't help the people trying to cling to their sanity. I don't think the people on the lower floors had any idea to what extent things were going on, and I don't think the people on the upper floors had much time to think about it. Exiting the stairs in the upper lobby of the building (still inside) flashed a scene to the fountain area outside (the area between the two towers that people may remember Homer Simpson had a boot on his car in, if you saw that one). Completely evacuated, but the sound of "pebbles" brought me to look out the large windows to see a the outside raining glass, debris and burning "stuff". The direction that everyone was running was towards a covered bridge that runs between the WTC and the World Financial Center (across the west side highway, going towards the water). I wish I didn't but from this point until after I had crossed the highway, I had saw several bodies.. one thing that you never want to see is someone falling 80 stories to the.. well, I'll leave it there. Yes, I saw "the whole thing". We had to quickly run across from our building to the building where the bridge is. Walking quickly towards the water, I finally got a chance to look back at the building. At this point, I had no idea that there was anything wrong with the WTC 2 building (the one without the antenna, second hit, it was the one that was the first to fall and was hit more in the middle). Making it closer to the water, the sight of one of the tallest buildings in the world in flames makes you a bit terrified, but very thankful that you made it out. In a bit of a daze, I continued to walk north along the waterfront on the west side of Manhattan. I had found a friend of mine from Merrill Lynch (Brian Yarrington) walking in the same direction and tried to talk about other things.. not really able to complete sentences, I tried borrowing his cell phone to call my family (who were no doubt _FREAKING_ out), but cell reception wasn't happening. At some point, I had been able to look back and notice the size of the damage to WTC 1. I still did not know that WTC 2 had been hit.Aboutanother three quarters of a mile down the road, I finally saw the damage that had been done to WTC 2 and had overheard someone talking about a bomb going off in that building. Continued to walk home. These days I have been living in the West Village between 6th and 7th avenues around Christopher St. and West 4th. I had said goodbye to my friend Brian and started walking east into Manhattan's Greenwich Village. I had stopped on Hudson street to talk with some people who were standing in the street listening to the news on a car stereo. I told my story, declined some help and "you should see a doctor" talk and continued walking towards my apartment. Somewhere between Bleeker St. and 7th avenue, I see and hear the screams of people on 7th avenue (about 50 ft. away) looking in the direction of the towers. Asking what had just happened, people told me that WTC 2 had just collapsed (the first collapse). About this time, I saw my apartment's super, a woman named Ana, and just went over to her and threw my arms around her. I finally went back to my apartment and tried to call my family on a normal phone. No such luck, the phone system was extremely clogged.EventuallyI made it over to 6th avenue and bumped into an acquaintance from the office (he sat a row away from me). We turned to see the WTC 1 building collapse into nothing.Funny, as we were parting ways, I started to say "See you tomorrow..." ... I stopped after "See you..." when we realized that we should just finish the sentence with "when I see you.."Well, it took me three hours to write this. I apologize to the people who have been worried about me for the last few hours, but know that I am safe and only a little shaken up. Peace.-BjB Written by  Brian J. Bernsetin, employee of Lehman Brothers in WTC Tower 1. He was sitting in his office when the plane hit, and he wrote this posting at 12:45 in the afternoon on September 11, 2001.

15. On Tuesday morning at 8:46 PM, I was in 2 World Trade Center on the 64th floor, where I used to report to work for Morgan Stanley. I was sitting at my computer reading the BBC on the internet about the problems in Israel, when I heard an explosion.I remember that I thought that it was a bad explosion because I heard the back up generator kick in within seconds of the initial impact. I jumped up and ran to one of the unoccupied offices that had a window and looked out to see large amounts of debris (papers, metal, all kinds of things!) floating down towards the street. I ran back into my office and called my boss on his cell phone and told him, "Don't come in here there was an explosion and we are beginning to evacuate!" and I hung up the phone and ran back out into the hallway. At that moment someone called out to me, “Is there any one down there!" ,"Yes", I said and he yelled at me to, “get my ass” into the stairwell because we were evacuating. I did as told.Atthat time people were still very calm and were evacuating in an orderly fashion. It was business as usual and occasionally the lines would slow down because people were fooling around and bullshitting on the stair well. 'The building began to sink' We had reached either the 51st or the 50th floor when we heard a huge explosion, which shook the building like crazy! I grabbed hold of the stairwell to steady myself when a women who had fallen from a flight up hit me in the back and sent me down a flight of stairs with her on my back.Ithen tried to stand up but the building was still shaking and the lights were flickering on and off. It was terrifying! Then the building began to sink. That’s the only way I can describe it. The floor began to lower under my feet and all I could think about was that it would crack open and I would fall hundreds of feet to my death! Everyone thought it was only taking place in 1 WTC the other tower. Not in our tower. Once this happened it turned into pandemonium! People began screaming and crying and praying out loud for God to help them. I remember that I began to pray once the floor gave out. Asking God to just let the building stop shaking long enough for me to get out.Afterwhat seemed like an eternity the building settled and the evacuation began in earnest. Except people were panicking and a stampede started and they were running each other down. Myself and the Philippine women who had landed on me and a few people that I remember from my floor pushed up against the wall and waited for the initial surge of people to subside and then we began to move out again. 'We began to smell jet fuel' After this things began to speed up some were along the route and between the 44th and 34th floors. I lost sight of the little Philipino women who had been hanging on to my arm. She was there one moment and gone the next. This really bothers me a lot.Somewherearound the 25th floor, we began to smell jet fuel and a lot of it. I have asthma and it began to become a little difficult to breathe but by the 15th floor it became unbearable due to the amount of smoke that was now entering the stairwell. I took of my shirt and wrapped it around my head to help me breathe and it worked, but my eyes were stinging real bad. After what seemed like and eternity, but actually took about 40 minutes we saw our first glimpse of the outside world.Thestairwell let out onto the mezzanine were the elevators were located that took you up to the observation deck. We were met by the FBI and NYPD detectives who were asking if anyone needed medical attention and then yelling at us to keep moving towards the escalators and down into the shopping area of the World Trade Center Plaza. (I don’t think that those FBI and NYPD guys got out.)I remember that when we were about to get on the escalators you could look out the windows onto the square between the two buildings and see the large ball sculpture and the fountain and lots and lots of bodies. Some that was still falling to the ground and some still smouldering. I will never forget that sight as long as I live. 'Huge plumes of thick black smoke' After we got down to the Plaza level you were directed out to either Liberty street (and probably death because that’s were the building collapsed) or towards the E train on the other side of the platform. That’s were I went because I take the E train to get home to Queens. Everyone I was still with from Morgan Stanley at that time split up going in many different directions and I don’t know if they all survived. When I got to the E train the cops were telling you to run through the gate and get out the other end onto to street level. When I came out onto the street at the other end of the platform I ran up to the first cop I saw and asked what had happened and she looked at me like I was crazy, "what are you kidding?" "No!" I yelled, and said I had been inside 2 WTC.Shethen told me that two jets had been flown into the two towers and then she ran off to tape off the street. The streets were absolutely crazy. FBI inspectors were taking measurements of what looked like a piece of one of the planes' wings. People were screaming and running everywhere. Emergency vehicles everywhere you looked. I took my first look at the two towers. I could not believe what I was seeing. Both buildings were on fire with flames shooting out of them about a 100ft high. Huge plumes of thick black smoke were billowing out of them and when I looked at tower 2 you could still see the tail end of the jet hanging out of the building.Ibegan to run. I ran to the 6 train that was located on the eastern side of city hall. I ran down stairs and jumped onto the first train that pulled up just as I got down to the platform. At that moment 2 WTC began to fall to the ground with 1 WTC falling within moments of tower 2. I didn’t stop running until I got back to Queens. Written by Eric Levine who was at his desk on the 64th floor in the south tower