National History Day Resource Archive

Check out these valuable resources spanning from 2014 to 2024, designed to inspire your current National History Day projects!

National History Day and National Endowment for the Humanities Scholar Medals
Photo caption

National History Day and National Endowment for the Humanities Scholar Medals.

2024: Turning Points in History

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

2023: Frontiers in History: People, Places, Ideas

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 

Movements and Ideas 

Places  

2022: Debates and Diplomacy in History

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 

2021: Communication in History

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"

2020: Breaking Barriers

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"

2019: Triumph and Tragedy

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"

2018: Conflict and Compromise

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


EDSITEment Lesson Plans

2017: Taking a Stand

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"

2016: Exploration, Encounter, Exchange

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" 

2015: Leadership and Legacy

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
2014: Rights and Responsibilities

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"