Theme

The annual National History Day® contest theme is designed to help students focus on a topic from any aspect of local, regional, national, or world history. With this focus, students can begin to ask questions to drive their research. Their research will help them to discover how their topic is significant in history.

National History Day’s 2025 theme:

Rights and Responsibilities in History

The key to this theme is addressing BOTH rights and responsibilities. These are two powerful forces in history, but one does not work without the other. They are connected.

Want to dive deeper into the theme?

Download a PDF of the theme book for more information.

Interested in showing your class a theme video?