OUR HISTORY
A TERM PAPER
History tells the life, culture, and society in the past. It holds countless stories about love, bravery,
tragedy, or one’s sacrifice in the name of freedom, and every story in it has a deeper meaning that
can serve as inspiration and reflection for people living in the present to better prepare for and
anticipate the future. Since history happened in the past, there are called sources to connect the
timeline, evidence and ideas to comprehend the historical event. Primary sources refer to the
sources or evidence that directly witnessed the event, and secondary sources are the hearsays to an
occasion. Sources are critical as it is the only way to reconstruct unimaginably the historical event,
and as the lack of sources could lead to misunderstanding and misleading information. For
instance, the historical contexts written mostly in high school books were generally written in
summary, which remarkably left out the important details that could also be the key point to the
event, which may only know or fulfill the gaps in the story when there is a willingness to research
and find more sources on it. This proves that history has two-side of stories. One that is known,
and shared to the world, and one that remains hidden or continuously being a secret. One sided
story is either half-life, or half true, that is why collecting sources and/or evidence is critical to
connect the ideas and timeline of events, to better understand the history, or the stories of our past.
Historians are the ones who are writing our histories, the one who studies and writes about the past
and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical
narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all history
in time. The quote “History is always the version of the story of the victors and winners. They get
a chance to write or rewrite history.” I disagree because some quotes are clever; some only
superficially so. Often, we are so awed by a statement that we don’t ever question its veracity. It
implies that history is not grounded in facts, rather it’s the winners’ interpretation of them that
prevails. According to the article that I’ve read “The Historian in the Archives Limitations
of Primary Source Materials” written by Lydia Lucas. It discusses that Historians rely on careful
research and documentary to support their arguments and they are only dependent on historical
sources. They should explore the primary sources in order to make a good and trustful statement
that concludes other opinions and accurate evidence.
Many of the fallacies historians are advised to guard against in their own work also infect their
sources. Personal documents tend to be biased. Couched in the terminology and conceptions of
their creators' own time, with a hunted range of perception and comprehension, and generally
reflective of the frailties of individual human beings. Organizational and institutional records are
very little less so, even more than personal papers, they were retained to aid the purposes of their
creators rather than the interests of posterity or the requirements of the researcher. Documentation
of all sorts is lamentably incomplete as a representation of past reality, only an infinitesimal
proportion of the range of past thoughts, actions, reactions, and emotions have been recorded in
tangible form, and an even lesser proportion outlives its creator or its immediate function. Primary
sources are the ones that help the historian in writing a research, its is the evidence that was
gathered, fact and truths. However, truth and lies coexist in history, and we are unable to determine
whether a story we have read in our lives contains only the truth or conceals lies. For instance, We
currently reside in the Philippines, a nation rich in history. The most well-known history that has
persisted throughout the decades is “The History of the Marcoses.” The Martial law under the
former president Ferdinand Marcos Sr. At 7:17 pm on September 23, 1972, President Ferdinand
Marcos announced on television that he had placed the entirety of the Philippines under martial
law. This marked the beginning of a 14-year period of one-man rule that would effectively last
until Marcos was exiled from the country on February 25, 1986. Even though the formal document
proclaiming martial law – Proclamation No. 1081, which was dated September 21, 1972 – was
formally lifted on January 17, 1981, Marcos retained essentially all of his powers as dictator until
he was ousted. This 14-year period in Philippine history is remembered for the administration’s
record of human rights abuses, particularly targeting political opponents, student activists,
journalists, religious workers, farmers, and others who fought against the Marcos dictatorship.
Based on the documentation of Amnesty International, Task Force Detainees of the Philippines,
and similar human rights. However, many Filipinos claim that we are misinformed and that the
history and tales we were told as children weren’t entirely true but instead contained some lies.
My grandparents were present when martial law was implemented, and they claimed that although
many events in our past had been altered and that history had been rewritten to favor those who
opposed the Marcoses.
As historians penetrate more deeply into the study of social structure and family life, they are
discovering a multiplicity of factors that can influence who creates the documentation that reflects
these aspects of our life and that can distort what is created. Many institutions are forced to turn
down valuable collections because they have no space to house them; many other collections
languish undiscovered or passed over due to lack of field staff to seek out, contact, and negotiate
with their possessors. Unless routed to or discovered by another collecting agency, their most
probable fate sooner or later is to perish through accident, deterioration, or deliberate destruction.
County and local archives have also been destroyed, even in defiance (or ignorance) of law, after
the county courthouse was filled to the brim. In that case, I would strongly disagree with the earlier
quote because not all of our history is written by victors and winners; history, according to the
article, goes through many processes. Processes are required to broaden their knowledge of what
they write, but they do not gather enough information or they don’t present all the primary sources,
which may conceal the truth. Another form of distortion resides in the correspondence files of
bureaus, agencies, corporations, legislators, and other individuals or organizations that dealt
regularly with public issues and concerns. These files are especially likely’ to constitute a
dramatization of conflicts, discontents, and nonconformities. In addition to the biases that
characterize personal documents, such correspondence tends to be heavily weighted toward the
views of people with stronger feelings, more extreme positions, or deeper personal interests in an
issue than constitute their society s norm or than are representative of public opinion as a whole.
History can take the form of a tremendous story, a rolling narrative filled with great personalities
and tales of turmoil and triumph. Each generation adds its own chapters to history while
reinterpreting and finding new things in those chapters already written. History provides us with a
sense of identity. By understanding where we have come from, we can better understand who we
are. History provides a sense of context for our lives and our existence. It helps us understand the
way things are and how we might approach the future. History teaches us what it means to be
human, highlighting the great achievements and disastrous errors of the human race. History also
teaches us through example, offering hints about how we can better organize and manage our
societies for the benefit of all. We often think history and the past are the same thing. This is not
the case. The past refers to an earlier time, the people and societies who inhabited it and the events
that took place there. History describes our attempts to research, study and explain the past. This
is a subtle difference but an important one. What happened in the past is fixed in time and cannot
be changed. In contrast, history changes regularly. The past is concrete and unchangeable but
history is an ongoing conversation about the past and its meaning. ONE IDEAL of historical
explanation is that it should take into account the full range of persons, organizations, and
institutions of the society it strives to interpret. But not all the written stories contain only the truth.
As the twenty first century has drawn to a close and we move into an expanding new era, the
complex meanings, intrinsic qualities, purposes, and value of history require serious attention.
Like historical narratives themselves, our understanding of what history is and the shape it should
take is flexible and open to debate. For as long as people have studied history, historians have
presented different ideas about how the past should be studied, constructed, written and
interpreted. Because there are so many of these stories, they are often variable, contradictory and
conflicting. This means history is subject to constant revision and reinterpretation. Each generation
looks at the past through its own eyes. It applies different standards, priorities and values and
reaches different conclusions about the past.