What is National History Day?
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What do you get out of participating in National History Day?You learn:
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What are the categories? |
What is this year's theme?
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GETTING STARTED |
CHOOSE A TOPIC |
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Each year your research must connect to the NHD theme. The theme changes each year so if you do NHD every year, you will not repeat a theme. The themes are chosen to be broad enough to encourage investigation of topics ranging from local history to world history, and from ancient time to the recent past. To understand the historical importance of your topic you need to ask questions about time, place and context, cause and effect, change over time, and impact and significance. You must consider not only when and where events happened, but also why they occurred and what factors contributed to their development.
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Topics for research are everywhere! Think about a time in history or individuals or events that are interesting to you. Start a list.
• Read books, newspapers or other sources of information. • Talk with relatives, neighbors, or people you know who have lived through a particular time in history that interests you. • Keep thinking, reading and talking to people. From the ideas that you circled, select one to begin your research. Keep your list because you might need it again. Selecting a National History Day Contest topic is a process of gradually narrowing down the area of history (period or event) that interests you to a manageable subject. |
ONLINE RESOURCES
Here are some excellent resources for primary documents.