Why 1989?

Making the History of 1989 was created to solve three distinct issues identified by high school instructors and college professors teaching Cold War history.

First was a simple but intractable language barrier problem; instructors complained that few English language sources were available online.

Teachers also asserted that textbooks fed students static, prepackaged narratives rather than how history is made.

Lastly, teachers and scholars claimed that the topic lacked a robust, authoritative and--most importantly--working historical website which included multiple perspectives of the events which prefaced the end of the Cold War. Previous lackluster digitial resources were portals dominated by broken links to other websites. The resources hosted little--if any--primary source material.

This project sought to solve these issues by creating a digital history website to meet the demand for educating students on the momentous events of 1989.