National History Day is a nationwide competition that encourages middle and high school students to develop creative, original historical research based around an annual theme. The 2021 theme is Communication in History: The Key to Understanding.
Students can participate in one of five categories, which are organized in two separate divisions, Junior Division (6–8 grade) and Senior Division (9–12 grade). The categories have individual and group options, with the exception of the paper category. Groups can have up to five members.
- Paper (individual only)
- Website (individual or group)
- Performance (individual or group)
- Exhibit (individual or group)
- Documentary (individual or group)
The Mississippi Department of Archives and History serves as Mississippi History Day’s sponsor in conjunction with the University of Southern Mississippi.
For more information, please contact our state coordinator:
Al Wheat
Director of Education, MDAH
State Coordinator, Mississippi History Day
601-576-6768
awheat@mdah.ms.gov
Getting Started
Award Winning Mississippi Project Samples
USPHS Syphilis Study—1st Place Group Documentary
Jonestown: A Paradise Tainted—2nd Place Group Documentary
Additional Resources
One of the keys to a successful Mississippi History Day project is quality primary and secondary sources. We have compiled a list of sites with excellent sources for many subject areas below.
- Mississippi History
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A Bicentennial History of Mississippi
Delta State University Archives
Jackson State University Library
Mississippi Civil Rights Project
Mississippi Department of Archives and History Digital Archives
Mississippi Digital Library
Mississippi Encyclopedia
Mississippi Gulf Coast Museum of Historical Photography
Mississippi History Now
Mississippi History Through the Arts
Mississippi History Timeline
Mississippi State University Digital Collections
Mississippi University for Women’s Library
Mississippi: A Thread Through Time/
Ocean Springs Archives
Tougaloo College Archives
University of Mississippi Digital Collections
University of Southern Mississippi Digital Collections - United States History
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AMDOCS
Archives of Maryland Online
Brown University Center for Digital Scholarship
Chronicling America
Cornell University Making of America
C-SPAN Video Library
Freedmen and Southern Society Project
HarpWeek: Explore History
Historical Society of Pennsylvania
Historical Voices
Library of Congress
Library of Congress American Memory
Maryland Historical Society Online Collections
Museum of the Moving Image
National Archives
National Historic Geographic Information System
PBS Africans in America
Smithsonian Institution Collections Search Center
Society for Historians of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era
Southern Foodways Alliance Oral Histories
The Freedom Archives
The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History
UCSF Truth Tobacco Industry Documents
Ulysses S. Grant Presidential Library
United States Bureau of Labor Statistics
United States Census Bureau
University of Houston Digital History
University of Michigan Making of America
University of North Carolina Documenting the American South
USDA Economic Research Service
Vanderbilt University Television News Archive - World History
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BBC A History of the World
Fordham University Internet History Sourcebooks
Foundation for the Advancement of Mesoamerican Studies
George Mason University Other Women’s Voices
George Mason University World History Sources
International Slavery Museum
McMaster University Digital Collections
Slave Voyages
Understanding Slavery Initiative
United Nations Documents
University of Pittsburgh World Historical Dataverse
- European History
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BBC History
Brigham Young University EuroDocs
Brown University Center for Digital Scholarship
Calvin University German Propaganda Archive
Cold War International History Project
EH.net
European History Primary Sources
Europeana Collections
Furman University Secession Era Editorials Project
German History in Documents and Images
Harvard University Project on the Soviet Social System Online
H-German
Imperial War Museum
Library of Congress Revelations from the Russian Archives
Mary Evans Picture Library
Northern Illinois University Lincoln/Net
Royal Museums Greenwich Collections
Stanislaus State German History Sources
The Society for Medieval Military History De Re Militari
UC Santa Barbara Germany and German History Links
United Kingdom National Archives
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
University of Michigan Encyclopedia of Diderot & d'Alembert
University of Virginia Library Valley of the Shadow
Yad Vashem World Holocaust Remembrance Center Digital Collections
Yale Law School Avalon Project - Conflict & War History
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BBC World Wars Links
Brigham Young University World War I Document Archive
Emory University The Great War
FirstWorldWar.com
United States Military Academy Historic Atlases
University of Oxford First World War Poetry Digital Archive
Yale University World War I - African History
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African Online Digital Library
Michigan State University South Africa
- Asian History
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Asia for Educators
Harvard University Ming History English Translation Project
International Dunhuang Project
Wellesley College "Serve the People!" - Latin American History
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Oberlin College Sources and General Resources on Latin America
University of Texas Latin American Network Information Center
University of Texas Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection - Research Tools
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Google Books
Google Patent Database
Google Scholar
Internet Archive
Milestone Documents
Roy Rosenzweig for History and New Media
University of Pennsylvania Online Books Page