National History Bee and Bowl

The National History Bee and Bowl is an history focused academic competition directed by David Madden. It consists of the National History Bowl, a four-player team event played on pyramidal questions in a four-quarter format, and the National History Bee, an individual elimination-style event. Teams qualify for Nationals by placing above a certain threshold at regional Bowls; all sites also have a Varsity and JV division. In addition to the History Bee and Bowl, NHBB also organizes a number of other quizbowl-adjacent events, including the US History Bee and US Geography Championships.

For the 2010-11 school year, the local events were written by NHBB staff and Nationals were written by HSAPQ; until 2014, HSAPQ wrote for all History Bowl events, before that task fell to teams led by Matt Weiner in 2015 (but see here) and Brad Fischer in 2016 and beyond.

National History Bee and Bowl also incorporates middle and elementary school divisions. In February 2016, the running of the elementary and middle school division was transferred to ACE.

History Bowl Format

A History Bowl game consists of 4 quarters. The first quarter features tossups worth 10 points each. The second quarter features tossups and one-part bonuses, worth 10 points. The third quarter, known as the Lightning Round, gives teams 60 seconds to answer a series of eight increasingly difficult short questions on a particular theme. Questions missed by one team "bounceback" to the other team. Finally, the fourth quarter features powermarked tossups worth 30, 20, or 10 points.

History Bee Format

During regional competitions and the preliminary rounds of nationals, history bee questions are simply a series of 35-tossups, worth 1 point each. However, students who get eight questions are said to "exit" the round, and gain a number of bonus points based on where they exit (for a total score ranging from 8 to 15).

At the playoff rounds of nationals, the history bee uses the 6-5-4-3-2-1 scoring system. Tossups are powermarked, and based on where a student buzzes they can earn either 6, 5, 4, or 3 points if they are correct. If they are incorrect, they suffer a -2 penalty if they buzzed before the end of the tossup, and a -1 penalty otherwise.

In both local bees and national bees, 3 incorrect interrupts "kill" the question.

Past Champions and Results

Bowl

Year	Bowl Champion	Bowl Runner-Up	JV Bowl Champion	JV Bowl Runner-up	Field size
2011	Maggie Walker	Parkersburg High	Wilmington Charter	Bellarmine	98 (72 Varsity + 26 JV)
2012	Hunter	Bellarmine	Northmont	Chattahoochee	161 (113 Varsity + 48 JV)
2013	Bellarmine	LASA	Northmont	Centennial	198 (132 Varsity + 66 JV)
2014	LASA	Saratoga	Westview	Farragut	216 (132 Varsity + 84 JV)
2015	Saratoga	LASA	Hunter	Saratoga	246 (156 Varsity + 90 JV)
2016	LASA	Lexington	James E. Taylor	Thomas Jefferson	263 (161 Varsity + 102 JV)
2017	Westview	Thomas Jefferson	Beavercreek	Trinity Prep	252 (144 Varsity + 108 JV)
2018	Thomas Jefferson	Richard Montgomery	Stevenson	George Washington	252 (144 Varsity + 108 JV)
2019	Beavercreek	Millburn	Hunter College A	Team Coldhug (CT)	240 (144 Varsity + 96 JV)
2020	Stevenson	Saratoga	Team MB A		84 (36 Varsity + 48 JV)
2021	Hunter	Thomas Jefferson HSST	Wakeland	Ransom Everglades	101 (66 Varsity + 35 JV)
2022	Hunter College A	Hotchkiss	Livingston	North Star Academy	144 (84 Varsity + 60 JV)

Bee

Year	Bee Champion	Bee Runner-Up	JV Bee Champion	JV Bee Runner-Up	MS Bee Champion
2011	Mark Arildsen, University School of Nashville	Nicholas Brumfield, Parkersburg High	Sameer Rai, Bellarmine	Mickey Gioia, Stepton HS
2012	Alex Frey, St. Joseph	Richard Yu, Hunter Mark Arildsen, University School of Nashville	Sameer Rai, Bellarmine	Jonathan Leidenheimer, George C. Marshall	Tajin Rogers, Longfellow
2013	Sameer Rai, Bellarmine	Jonathan Leidenheimer, George C. Marshall	Connor Wood, Maggie Walker	Nirav Ilango, Chattahoochee	Jonathan Tran, Stoller
2014	Jonathan Leidenheimer, George C. Marshall	Sameer Rai, Bellarmine	Daniel Yan, Farragut	Chandler Burrows, Rolla	Alex Schmidt, Seven Generations Charter School
2015	Bruce Lou, Saratoga	Austin Foos, Detroit Catholic Central	Alex Schmidt, Lehigh Valley Academy	John Peter Connor, E. WA Homeschool	Benji Chiu, Stoller
2016	Jakob Myers, Naperville North	Devin Shang, Lexington	Douglas Simons, High Tech	Rohan Hegde, TJHSST	8th Grade: Govind Prabakhar, Buffalo Grove Aptakisic 7th Grade: Enzo Cunanan, Trinity Prep
2017	Jakob Myers, Naperville North	Jonathan Tran, Westview	Justin Young, McLean	William Golden, James E. Taylor	8th Grade: Arjun Nageswaran, Buffalo Grove Aptakisic 7th Grade: Robert Muniz, Midtown Classical
2018	Alex Schmidt, Lehigh Valley	Fred Zhang, Thomas Jefferson	Govind Prabhakar, Stevenson	Walker Combs, George Washington	8th Grade: Robert Muniz, Midtown Classical 7th Grade: Rishabh Wuppalapati, Daniel Wright Junior High
2019	Hari Parameswaran, Beavercreek	Eshaan Vakil, Ed W. Clark	Shiva Oswal, Team Pi-Oneers	Avinash Iyer, Team Escobar (CA)	8th Grade: Vaibhav Rangan, Joaquin Miller Middle School 7th Grade: Daniel Figueroa, Ransom Everglades 6th Grade: Arin Parsa, Challenger Almaden
2020	Pedro Juan Orduz, Hunter	Arjun Nageswaran, Stevenson	Andrew Zeng, Hunter	Rishabh Wuppalapati, Stevenson	8th Grade: Bradford Kimball, Buckingham Browne & Nichols School 7th Grade: Arin Parsa, Team History Scholars 6th Grade: Shounak Bhindwale, Harvest Park
2021	Andrew Zeng, Hunter	Liam Starnes, Barrington	Ian Lu, Hunter	Cole Hartung, Kinkaid	8th Grade: Arin Parsa, Stanford Online 7th Grade: Shounak Bhindwale, Harvest Park 6th Grade: Parker Jelke, Ransom Everglades
2022	Andrew Zeng, Hunter	Ian Lu, Hunter	Robert Wang, Livingston	Cole Hartung, Kinkaid	8th Grade: Maximillian Lin, Eastchester 7th Grade: Padraig Finan, Risdon 6th Grade: Satvik Jain, Burleigh Manor Elementary: Neel Jayaraman (4th), TAG Young Scholars