History Day News Archive
September 26, 2024
Student Contest: US Courts Fifth Annual Bill of Rights Day
The United States Courts within the Seventh and Eighth Circuits are hosting the Fifth Annual Bill of Rights Day Contest and we want YOU to be a part of it! Students in Grades 5-12 from Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wisconsin are encouraged to submit art and essays on the importance of the Bill of Rights. Detailed contest prompts, guidelines, and online submission form can be found here.
Submission deadline is Nov 1, 2024. Finalists from each grade level category will receive a $50 prize and advance to the finals. Grand prize winners will be awarded a $500 cash prize, be able to take part in a virtual award ceremony with a federal judge on Wednesday, December 4, and have their name and submission shared on the websites of the participating United States District Courts.
September 4, 2024
Professional Development for 2024–25
We invite teachers to learn about CMHD by attending our fall Teacher Kickoff or History Day 101 events. Teachers planning to start History Day in their classrooms are encouraged to attend History Day Methods.
Learn more about these events and see the full list of offerings.
August 27, 2024
CHM is excited to announce that we have received a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
The grant will support and expand “Rethinking the Gilded Age and Progressivisms: Race, Capitalism, and Democracy, 1877–1920,” a seminar-style program for K–12 teachers. Now in its seventh year, the three-week summer institute in Chicago will continue to engage 30 participating educators with readings, discussions, lectures with leading historians, guided excursions, and opportunities to develop classroom materials rooted in their own inquiries.
We’re thrilled to continue to give educators a space to contemplate and debate this critical period in US history when radically different perspectives often dominated public discourse. See the press release and full list of awards.
August 19, 2024
Educator Learning Opportunities for 2024/2025
National History Day has announced two virtual professional development opportunities for teachers in the 2024/2025 academic year. The first is Researching Silent Heroes and the second is Teaching African American History. Teachers will have options to receive professional development hours or graduate extension credits. Teachers may apply to either or both opportunities from the NHD website linked below
Applications for these programs will close at noon ET on Friday, October 18, 2024. Selected teachers will be notified on or before Friday, November 1, 2024.
June 21, 2024
Opportunity – NHD and National Cemetery Administration
Silent Heroes: Untold Stories from the Korean War
Apply for an opportunity to engage students (minimum of two, maximum of one class) in a special project to research and profile the experiences of two veterans of the Korean War. Over the course of nine months, student-teacher teams will research the life of two individuals who served in the US military during the Korean War, came home, and continued to serve their community, and are currently buried or memorialized in a US National Cemetery.
To be eligible for this opportunity, the school must be located within 90 miles of a US National Cemetery that is currently open to burials. Applications are now open and will be accepted through Friday, August 2. All applicants will be notified on or before Friday, August 9, 2024. Learn more about the program.
June 14, 2024
Congratulations to the 66 students who represented Illinois at the National History Day® National Contest held June 9‒13, 2024! Their 36 entries advanced from a statewide pool of nearly 10,000 students who created History Day projects at the classroom level.
The following students placed in the top 10 entries in their category:
- Milo Richards earned 1st place in Junior Individual Exhibit for “War of the Electric Currents.”
- Evan Jin, Jeremiah Jin, Nathan Eng, and Urijah Dalach earned 4th place in Senior Group Performance for “Wong Kim Ark and the Battle for Birthright Citizenship.”
- Davis Smith earned 9th place in Senior Individual Website for “News of the Boston Massacre: Breaking News or Fake News?”
- Ayush Mishra earned 10th place in Senior Individual Performance for “Coal, Compromise, and Change: Teddy Roosevelt’s Presidential Leadership during the Anthracite Coal Strike of 1902 as a Turning Point in Labor History.”
The following students were awarded special prizes:
- Avani Nandi won the U.S. Constitution Award, sponsored by National Archives and Records Administration, for her Junior Individual Documentary, “Separate Is Never Equal: How the Mendez v. Westminster Suit Was a Turning Point in the Desegregation of Schools across the United States.”
- Deepti Koduru, Madeleine Kim, Noa Kim-Cohen, and Selasi Affram won the Equality in History Prize, sponsored by Celie and Tabitha Niehaus, for their Junior Group Documentary, “Rock Revolutionaries: The Chicago Women’s Liberation Rock Band.”
- Evan Jin, Jeremiah Jin, Nathan Eng, and Urijah Dalach won the Asian American History Prize, sponsored by the National Park Service, for their Senior Group Performance, “Wong Kim Ark and the Battle for Birthright Citizenship.”
Two entries earned the Outstanding Affiliate Awards for Illinois:
- Benjamin Davis earned the Junior Division Outstanding Affiliate Award for his Junior Individual Documentary, “Jerry Lawson: A Game Changer.”
- Helena Emerton and Lucie Bhatoey-Bertrand won the Senior Division Outstanding Affiliate Award for their Senior Group Performance, “Miriam A. Ferguson and Nellie Tayloe Ross: A Turning Point for Women in State Government.”
National History Day Celebrates Student Projects Showcased at Cultural Institutions in Washington, DC
Congratulations to Illinois students whose projects were selected by National History Day to be showcased at cultural institutions in Washington, DC, on Wednesday, June 12.
- Karter Fugate and Leonidas Kalantzis-Jimenez’s exhibit titled “Remembering Emmett – Till Justice is Served” will be at the National Museum of American History.
- Lydia Frost, Millicent Norton, Tejah Rana, and Lisa Tao’s documentary titled “The Turn of the Anti-Lynching Movement Through the Work of Ida B. Wells” will be at the National Museum of African American History and Culture.
- Henry Everett’s paper “Turning the Tide: How The American Railway Union Changed the Federal Strike Policy” will be in the White House Historical Association’s showcase.
June 7, 2024
National History Day Celebrates Affiliate Nominees for the 2024 Patricia Behring Teacher of the Year Award
National History Day® (NHD) is proud to announce the teachers honored as the 2024 Patricia Behring Teacher of the Year nominees. Each NHD affiliate may nominate one middle school teacher and one high school teacher per year for this prestigious award. In addition to celebrating outstanding history scholarship and innovative classroom instruction, the award comes with a $10,000 cash prize. The 102 teachers selected as the 2024 Patricia Behring Teacher of the Year nominees represent 50 of NHD’s 58 affiliates.
One national winner in the middle school (junior) division and one national winner in the high school (senior) division will be selected by a committee of experienced teachers and historians and announced on Thursday, June 13, 2024, at the National History Day National Contest Awards Ceremony in College Park, Maryland. The Awards Ceremony will begin around 8 am and will be livestreamed at nhd.org/awards-ceremony.
Congratulations to Mrs. Patricia Romano Meegan of Philip Rogers Elementary School, Chicago, for being nominated out of the state of Illinois in the junior division. See the full list of nominees.