Whose Story? Comparing Multiple Perspectives on One Event

Hi, I'm Atlas. Imagine three people watch the same soccer goal. The home fan cheers, the visiting fan groans, and the referee just notes the time on her card. Nobody is lying, yet their three stories sound very different. That is because each person has a vantage point — a place they stood and a reason they cared. Historians face this every day. A single event, like a treaty signing, a flood, or a market day, gets written down by many people who each saw only a part of it. So what do historians do? Two big moves, each with a name. First, they corroborate: they check whether different sources agree on the same fact, like the date or who was present. When two independent witnesses say the same thing, we trust it more. Second, they contrast: they look for where the sources disagree and ask why. Maybe one writer wanted to look heroic, or simply could not see the whole field. Contrasting is just as important as corroborating, because disagreement is a clue, not a problem. No single account is the full truth. By laying many perspectives side by side, like puzzle pieces, historians build a fuller, fairer picture. If you ever feel stuck on a source, just ask three questions: Who made this? Where were they standing? What did they want? Those questions always give you a next step.