Congratulations to the recent state qualifiers for National History Day! Every year, all freshman complete a project for NHD in the form of a paper, exhibit, performance, documentary, or website centered around the theme. This year’s theme was “Triumph and Tragedy in History,” so students could pick any historical event that dealt with triumph and tragedy. Some sample NHD topics from the organization’s website include “Chicago: America’s Second City” or “Impressment of Sailors: an American Tragedy?” National History Day was founded in 1974 by Dr. David Tassel, a professor at Case Western University, in Cleveland, Ohio with just over a hundred students participating, and today over 500,0000 students participate. The program is currently based in College Park, Maryland and students advancing to the final, national round will compete at the University of Maryland in June. National History Day encourages students to explore history and learn critical synthesis, research, and writing skills, and according to the group’s motto, “it’s more than a day, it’s an experience.”

As mentioned before, every year Freshmen take on National History Day, and on February 9th several students, including Meriem Bazine, Genevieve Geils, Hana Hiraoka, Marianne Jenkins, Analiese Keller, Reese Laird, Maria Lindner, Mitchell O’Dell, Alana Overbey, Grace Ray, Kate Waldorf, and Anne Young attended the regional round of NHD at Charleston Southern University where they presented projects and were judged to determine if they would make it to the State Round. Anne Young, Lucy Manuel, Marianne Jenkins, and Genevieve Geils project was titled “The Panic of the Polio Pandemic” about Polio and its effect on children in the mid twentieth century. The group interviewed people affected by polio and researched the pandemic. A vaccine for polio was created in the 1960s which virtually eradicated the disease from the United States, but interestingly, now a disease similar to polio called Acute Flaccid Myelitis is affecting children in the US for which there is no known cure. Another AMHS group did a project on Katherine Johnson, an African American mathematician whose work was essential to the launching of the Apollo 11. Katherine Johnson and two other mathematicians- Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson- are the basis for the movie Hidden Figures.

All AMHS students are National History Day Alumni, and there are several NHD celebrities in our midst! For example, Kevin Boyd and Adriana Carter received the National Corps of Discovery Award at the National Level for their website on Lewis and Clark. In addition, Janie O’Shea and Alanah Colestock also advanced to the National Level. Congratulations to all of the National History Day competitors and best of luck to those competing in the next round!