The 50th edition of the 2024 National History Day – Orange County (NHD – OC) contest was held on Saturday, March 9 at Sierra Vista Middle School. This contest is an annual event where students do research within a historical theme that has a wide range of applications in world, national or state history. Many students were finalists in the county competition, including sophomores Minyoung Park, En Zhang, and Kaiwen Zhao, juniors Annie Jiang, Rachel Park, Camille Helbig, Hailey Chen, Nina Chen, Kevin Choi, Aditri Advika Ramasamy, Alex Lin, Eric Yang, David Zhang, Jimmy Tang, Lilian Gan, Kenneth Chen, Sara Li, and Daniel Cho and seniors Elizabeth Choi and Ayla Shamsnia.

To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the competition, the theme is “Turning Points in History”. Students explored ideas, events or actions that had a significant impact on the world.

E. Choi and Shamsnia won the Senior Group Documentary category with their documentary “Patsy Mink: A Political Turning Point in the Intersection of Racial and Gender Equity”.

“It was a really fun experience and I really enjoyed the entire process,” Elizabeth Choi said. “Winning an award for it was also exciting because we got something to show for all of our hard work.”

Another event where UHS received an award was the  Senior Individual Exhibit category where Cho won. Cho’s exhibit was named “The 1968 Olympics: How the Black Power Salute Transformed Activism in Sports”. The exhibit highlighted two African-American athletes, Tommie Smith and John Carlos, who each raised a fist during the playing of the United States national anthem in the medal ceremony of the 1968 Olympics. 

“I was really interested in this topic because it was a huge moment in history so making my presentation came easy to me,” Cho said. “I’m looking forward to competing [next year] as well, representing our school and hopefully winning more awards.”

The 2024 NHD ​- OC contest was a success for UHS students. The competition continues to grow as more people join.