Process Paper
How we conducted our research
We did our research online and with a few books. For books, we used One hell of a gamble, an unfinished life, High Noon in the Cold War, and one minute to midnight. Also Chris’s step dad was in New York at the time this all happened so we talked to him to see if all our information was correct. We found a summary of the Cuban missile crisis by Kurt Wiersma and Ben Larson and printed out two copies, one for each of us to read and go through with a highlighter. It was information on all the days the crisis that took place (fourteen). The summary was a good start but we still needed more information so we went out and checked out some books from the library as well as bought some.
Why we chose our topic
We chose to do a website because we wanted to try something none of us had done before. This made our project great learning experience. We were going to do something on ancient Egypt but we decided that there wasn’t a lot of debate and diplomacy in that time period. When we went into it we knew it most likely would be harder and more complicated but it was a topic that we where both interested in so it was worth it. Overall we both believe that our project was a success and we are happy with our decision to create a website. We are also glad that we chose the Cuban missile crisis as our history day topic.
How our project relates to the theme
Our project, like we said, has a very direct connection to debate and diplomacy. Although it falls more under the category of debate. The reason for this is simply because there was much more decisions to be made within the two countries rather than confrontation between them. There was so much decision making and deciding of what to do and how to retaliate to the other countries actions and decisions. Thankfully though, nobody decided to retaliate with nuclear weapons. Despite all of the debate, there was still diplomacy within the Cuban Missile Crisis. Lots of this came from all of the letters between Nikita Khrushchev and John F. Kennedy. But more still came from meeting between Robert Kennedy and the Soviet ambassador Dobrynin. We feel that choosing the Cuban Missile Crisis al our National History day project topic fell into this year’s theme very well and are happy we chose it.
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