National History Day Resource Archive

The 2024 National History Day theme Turning Points in History invites students to explore how ideas, events, or actions cause change in direct and indirect ways. Through researching this theme, students will find that a turning point can be one individual’s personal decision, a mass movement, or anything in between. Students are asked to consider various consequences, from the tangible to the symbolic, the local to the global, and the immediate to the long-term. Many examples can be found within military history, political history, and legal history, but students are also encouraged to consider topics related to innovation and business, health and medicine, natural events and the environment, and science and technology.

This year’s theme narrative shares how the Chronicling America newspaper database can be used to explore debates around turning points in history. Using the examples of Hawaiian annexation and 1919's Red Summer, this essay encourages students to discover multiple perspectives through digitized newspapers. It prompts them to identify the goals and viewpoints of newspaper staff and to consider whose perspectives are highlighted, whose perspectives are missing or obscured, and how other current events shaped opinions. More resources can be found on the NHD Website as well as in this year’s theme book.

The National History Day theme video is a useful starting point for any topic and project.

EDSITEment Resources for Turning Points in History

• Nelson Mandela & South Africa 
• "Sí, se puede!": Chávez, Huerta, and the UFW 
• Places and People of the Civil Rights Movement 
• Latino Americans: War and Peace 
• I Remember: Japanese Incarceration During WWII
• Holocaust and Resistance
• Music of the Harlem Renaissance 
• The Mexican Revolution 
• Chronicling and Mapping the Women's Suffrage Movement 
• Hawai'i's Annexation and Statehood: How the Island Nation Became an American Frontier 
• Who Belongs on the Frontier: Cherokee Removal
• Arts of the Afro Atlantic Diaspora
• The Aztecs: Mighty Warriors of Mexico
• Galileo and the Inevitability of Ideas
• The Path of the Black Death
• The Cuneiform Writing System in Ancient Mesopotamia: Emergence and Evolution

The 2023 National History Day theme Frontiers in History: People, Places, Ideas encourages students to investigate what it means to be a pioneer and where pioneers throughout history can be found. Students researching this theme will find that frontiers and pioneers can be found throughout history in some surprising places. Topics from military history abound, but students are encouraged to explore economic, social, scientific, and political frontiers as well.  

The theme narrative for this year explores Citizenship, Race, and Place through the study of Chinese labor on the transcontinental railroad and the Japanese American Internment during World War II. By examining the different ways Asian Americans have experienced frontiers, this essay asks students to think about how people have traversed and transcended frontiers throughout history. More resources can be found on the NHD Website as well as in this year’s theme book.   

The NHD theme video also provides students a useful place to start their research.  

EDSITEment Resources for Frontiers in History: People, Places, Ideas 

Trailblazers 

• Leonardo da Vinci: Creative Genius 

• Adiós Amor: The Search for Maria Moreno 

• Thurgood Marshall Before the Court 

• Introducing Jane Eyre: An Unlikely Victorian Heroine 

• BackStory: Hidden Figures - The People Behind the Story You Know 

Movements and Ideas 

• The LGBTQ Community in American History 

• Was There an Industrial Revolution? New Workplace, New Technology, New Consumers 

• Afro Atlantic: Paths from Enslavement 

• Women's Equality: Changing Attitudes and Beliefs 

• The Freedom Riders and the Popular Music of the Civil Rights Movement 

Places  

• The Impact of the Transcontinental Railroad 

• Images of the New World 

• Dust Bowl Days 

• “The Great Migration” by Minnie Bruce Pratt 

• Places and People of the Civil Rights Movement

The 2022 National History Day theme “Debates and Diplomacy in History: Successes, Failures, Consequences” invites students to explore how various disputes and attempts at resolution have had significant impact throughout history. Researching topics on this theme may take students into areas of political or cultural differences, moments of international crisis, or cooperative economic policies. Students will find ready examples of diplomacy—both successes and failures—in relationships among state actors, but they should be encouraged to consider the diplomatic actions of individuals or organizations as well.  

The theme narrative explores Debate and Diplomacy in the Early Republic through the papers of the U.S. War Department. This essay offers examples for research and prompts students to weigh the rights of individuals against the security of the nation, a debate at least as old as the nation’s founding that continues today. More resources can be found on the NHD website and in this year’s theme book.   

Students will also find the NHD theme video a useful place to start their research.  

EDSITEment Resources for Debates and Diplomacy in History 

• The Papers of the War Department

• The Crisis of American Diplomacy: 1793–1808 

• Voting Rights for Women: Pro- and Anti-Suffrage 

• The Battle Over Reconstruction 

• Civil Rights and the Cold War 

• Bring Your Classroom to Life Through Diplomatic Oral Histories 

• The Monroe Doctrine: Origin and Early American Foreign Policy 

• Women Aviators in WWII 

• Voices of Democracy: Women Leaders of the Civil Rights Struggle 

• The Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962: The Missiles of October 

• The Origins of the Cold War, 1945-1949 

• The Jazz Ambassadors 

• The Debate in the United States over the League of Nations 

• From Neutrality to War: The United States and Europe 1921–1941 

• American Diplomacy in World War II 

The 2021 theme "Communication in History" offers students opportunities to explore how individuals and groups have shared information and the technological changes that have expanded how we communicate throughout history. The 2021 NHD theme narrative provides questions and examples for students to consider as they design their research projects. For instance, how do elected officials communicate with the public and why? How has technology shaped how we communicate? 

The National History Day theme video for "Communication in History" is a great starting point for any topic and project.

EDSITEment resources for "Communication in History"

• "From Time to Time": Presidents and Communicating with the Public

• Lincoln's First Inaugural Address: We Must Not Be Enemies

• Media and Communication Technology in the Making of America

• Chronicling America: History's First Draft

• FDR: Fireside Chats, the New Deal, and Eleanor

• FDR’s “Four Freedoms” Speech

• The President's Roles and Responsibilities: Communicating with the President

• President Madison's 1812 War Message

• Celebrating Studs Terkel – Interviewer of America

• BackStory: Behind the Bylines - Advocacy Journalism in America

• Teaching Women’s History through Great Speeches

• Winston Churchill on the Origins of the Cold War: The Fulton Speech

• "I Have a Dream": The Vision of Martin Luther King, Jr. 

The 2020 theme "Breaking Barriers in History" offers students opportunities to explore how individuals and groups have overcome obstacles on their way to changing history. The NHD theme narrative provides questions and examples for students to consider as they design their research projects. For instance, who was responsible for constructing a barrier? How and why did barriers form? Are the barriers natural or human made? Were the barriers reduced, restructured, or removed? Are all barriers negative?

The National History Day theme webinar for "Breaking Barriers in History" is a great starting point for any topic and project.

You can also view acclaimed documentary filmmaker Ken Burns curate a Breaking Barriers playlist for ideas and inspiration.

EDSITEment Learning Lab Collections:

Breaking Barriers: Innovation and Industry

Breaking Barriers: Women's Suffrage

Breaking Barriers: United Farm Workers

Breaking Barriers: Race, Gender, and the U.S. Military

Breaking Barriers: The Reconstruction Era

EDSITEment resources for "Breaking Barriers"

• Chronicling and Mapping the Women's Suffrage Movement

• Competing Voices in the Civil Rights Movement
• JFK, Freedom Riders, and the Civil Rights Movement
• Nelson Mandela and South Africa
• Was there an Industrial Revolution?
• The Transcontinental Railroad
• Asian American and Pacific Islander Perspectives
• Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wall-paper" and the "New Woman"

The 2019 theme of "Triumph and Tragedy in History" offers students opportunities to explore multiple sides of an event or issue to consider the short and long term ramifications in history. Was triumph a positive development for few, some, or many? Did people or places recover from the tragedy? Did a tragedy inspire triumphant actions and/or results in another time and place? 

EDSITEment resources for "Triumph and Tragedy"

• Triumph and Tragedy: American Immigrant Experiences
• Triumph and Tragedy: World War I
• Triumph and Tragedy: American Industry
• Triumph and Tragedy: Smithsonian Learning Lab Collections
• Triumph and Tragedy: Lincoln's Enduring Legacy

For National History Day students, the 2017/2018 academic year will be filled with research related to the theme of "Conflict and Compromise in History." This expansive theme allows students to choose from a generous range of topics, whether from the ancient world or the history of their own city. Students need to begin research with some reliable secondary sources in order to gain a broader context before progressing to the appropriate primary sources.  They will need to ask a series of questions about their chosen topic: What happened? How did it happen? Why did it happen? What were the consequences?

EDSITEment resources "Conflict and Compromise"

Learning Lab Collections

• Conflict and Compromise: Origins of the U.S. Constitution

• Conflict and Compromise: The War of 1812

• Conflict and Compromise: Chinese Exclusion Act
• Conflict and Compromise: The Mexican Revolution
• Conflict and Compromise: Art and World War I
• Conflict and Compromise: The Vietnam War

EDSITEment Lesson Plans

• Understanding the Salem Witch Trials
• "The Stamp Act" The Coming of the American Revolution
• The Question of Representation at the 1787 Convention
• Washington and the Whiskey Rebellion
• The United States, France, and the Problem of Neutrality, 1796–1801
• The First American Party System: Events, Issues, and Positions (3 Lessons)
• President Madison's 1812 War Message 
• Evangelicalism, Revivalism, and the Second Great Awakening
• The Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854: Popular Sovereignty and the Political Polarization over Slavery
• What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?
• Battle Over Reconstruction
• Chronicling America: Chinese Exclusion Act
• Chinese American: Exclusion/Inclusion
• Chronicling America: Pullman Porters
• Topics in Chronicling America: Panama Canal
• Turning the Tide in the Pacific, 1941–1943
• Sources of Discord, 1945–1946

For National History Day students, the 2016/2017 academic year will be filled with research related to the theme "Taking a Stand in History." This expansive theme allows participants to choose from a generous range of topics, whether from the ancient world or the history of their own city. Students will all need to begin research with secondary sources, however, in order to gain a broader context before progressing to the appropriate primary sources. Their final argument will be constructed on this foundation and should address the effects that their research has uncovered on their chosen topic.

2017 NHD Documentary, 1st Place Senior Individual: Warsaw Ghetto Uprising

EDSITEment resources for "Taking a Stand in History"

• Taking a Stand: American Revolution and the Founders

• Taking a Stand: Suffrage Movement 1848-1919 
• Taking a Stand: NAACP and the Birth of a Nation
• Taking a Stand: Brown v. Board
• Taking a Stand: Freedom Rides
• Taking a Stand: African American Civil Rights Movement
• Taking a Stand: Nelson Mandela and South Africa

The theme of National History Day 2016 "Exploration, Encounter, Exchange in History" is broad enough in scope to encourage investigation of topics ranging from local to world history and across any geographic area or time period. Consider this theme an invitation to look across time, space, and geography to find examples in history of when people took a risk and made a change.

EDSITEment resources for "Exploration, Encounter, Exchange" 

• Lewis and Clark: Exploring Uncharted Territory

• The Diplomacy Challenge
• The Jungle, Muckrakers, and Teddy Roosevelt
• Life in Babylonia: The Importance of Trade
• Trekking to Timbuktu: A Center of Trade

This year’s theme “Leadership and Legacy in History” offers a remarkable array of suggested topics for research projects.  Students may consider the following questions when investigating history and designing their projects: How should a leader be remembered? Who writes the history of leadership? How do we evaluate the short and long term influences of people and events? 

EDSITEment resources for "Leadership and Legacy" 

• Simon Bolivar and Gran Columbia: Leading the Fight for Independence from Spain

• The Congress of Vienna: Legacy of Napoleon’s Downfall
• Alfred Nobel and the Nobel Prize
• Otto von Bismarck and the Unification of Germany
• The Three Leaders: Mazzini, Garibaldi, Cavour and the Unification of Italy
• The Hudson River School: Leading an American School of Art
• Tecumseh and the Western Confederacy: Leading the Battle against Westward Expansion
• Pierre de Coubertin and the Rebirth of the International Olympic Committee
• Linking Europe, Africa, and Asia: “Ferdinand de Lesseps and the Construction of the Suez Canal
• Invoking the Power of the Federal Government: Grover Cleveland” and the Pullman Strike of 1894
• The Legacy of King Leopold's Vision in the Congo
• William Howard Taft and Dollar Diplomacy
• Pancho Villa: Leading Northern Mexico
• Emiliano Zepata: Leadership for “Reforma, Libertad Ley y Justicia”
• Emmeline Pankhurst: Leading a Militant Struggle for Suffrage in Great Britain
• Eugene V. Debs’ Leadership of the American Socialist Movement
• Vladimir Lenin”: Leading the Russian Revolution
• Realpolitik: A New Form of Leadership
• General Billy Mitchell and the Development of the American Air Force
• George Crile, Harvey Cushing, and the Ambulance Americaine: The Legacy of Wartime Medicine
• The Mercator Projection: Leading How We View the World
• Theodore Roosevelt: Leading the Charge to Build the Panama Canal
• Leading Higher Education in America: Harvard, Yale, and William & Mary

The 2013-2014 National History Day theme is “Rights and Responsibilities in History.” Under this broad topic, students have opportunities to explore a variety of topics as they prepare their respective projects. A few research questions to assist with inquiry include: Are all rights equally protected? Are the rights of all people equally protected? What responsibilities do people have to uphold their rights? When and why have rights been restricted and expanded in history? What role does geography play in the expansion and protection of rights?

EDSITEment resources for "Rights and Responsibilities" 

• Why Spinoza was Excommunicated
• "After the Mayflower" We Shall Remain
• “John Locke”: Natural Law, Natural Rights, and American Constitutionalism
• "The Stamp Act" The Coming of the American Revolution
• Religion in 18th-Century America
• Britain, Napoleon, and the American Embargo 1803-1808
• Britain, Napoleon, and the American Embargo 1803-1808
• Who Were the Foremothers of American Equality?
• "Mary Church Terrell" Tennessee Encyclopedia
• “John Muir, Nature’s Witness” Humanities Magazine
• The Storm that Swept Mexico
• The Mexican Revolution, November 1910
• Philip Randolph for Jobs and Freedom (NEH-supported film)
• "W.L Shirer on Nazi Germany" Annotations: the NEH Preservation
• "Desegregation of Central High School" Encyclopedia of Arkansas
• Building Suburbia: Highways and Housing
• "American Originals" Humanities Magazine
• Why Treaties Matter
• Making the History of 1989