The International History Bee is a buzzer-based history quiz competition for individual students. Please see below for a comprehensive account of how the Bee works. Please note that these same rules are also used for the International Geography Bee and International Science Bee (although for both of those competitions, a combined High School Division replaces the Varsity and Junior Varsity Divisions). If you have any further questions, please email david@iacompetitions.com

> Click here for sample questions and resources

Eligibility

In order to compete in the History Bee, you must be 19 years or younger at the time of your Regional Bee. You must also be enrolled in a primary or secondary school at the time of your regional tournament (or have graduated within the past two months, and not yet have started university studies).

For the 2023-2024 academic year, in order to compete in the Varsity division of the History Bee, students must have been born in or before August 2007 but not be over the age of 19. To qualify for the Junior Varsity Division, students must be born between September 2007 and August 2009. If a team wishes to compete in the Middle School Division, students must have been born in September 2009 or more recently. At tournaments that offer an Elementary Division, the Middle School Division is then for students born in September 2009-August 2011, and the Elementary Division is for students born in September 2011 or later.
There is no younger age limit – a brilliant and mature 8 year-old is welcome to compete.  Likewise, there is no limit on types of schools – local, international, public, private, religious, schools abroad following a home country curriculum, and homeschoolers are all welcome.
Students do not have to compete in the country their school is in; they can compete at up to three regional sites each year, as long as the three sites use different sets of questions.

Tournament Format

At all History Bees, in the Junior Varsity and Varsity divisions, there are three preliminary rounds of 30 questions each. In the Middle School and Elementary divisions these rounds have 25 questions.  In each round, you’ll be in a room with 5-10 students. Usually, it’s 6-8. Each round takes about 25-30 minutes to complete, including the finals.

Game Format

Students each have a buzzer and attempt to be the first student to ring in and answer correctly. Students may ring in at any point in the question – they are encouraged to interrupt the moderator to do so. After they ring in, they give their answer. If they are correct, they get a point. If incorrect, they cannot buzz again on the question. Three incorrect answers given will end the question, at which point the moderator reveals the answer. They do not normally lose a point if they are incorrect except if they are the third student to answer incorrectly before the end of the question, in which case, they do lose a point (so it is possible, conceivably to have a negative score). If the question has been read to completion, three incorrect answers will still end the question, but no penalty will be assessed.
Once a student has reached 8 points, that student is done for that round. But, students receive bonus points based on how early they reach 8 points. The following table summarizes the bonus structure:
Reaching 8 pts on or before question… Results in this many bonus pts… And thus this many total pts…
Eight                                                      Seven                                            Fifteen
Ten                                                          Six                                               Fourteen
Twelve                                                    Five                                              Thirteen
Fifteen                                                    Four                                              Twelve
Twenty                                                   Three                                             Eleven
Twenty-Five                                           Two                                               Ten
Thirty                                                     One                                                Nine

Since there are 30 or 25 questions in a round, it is thus impossible to finish the round with a score of eight points exactly.
Students are grouped into different groups for each of the three rounds. After all three rounds, the scores from all rounds are added up, and the top students advance to the finals.

Final Round Structure

In the final round, the top students in each division compete against the other top students from their division. The structure of the finals varies from tournament to tournament based on the time available for its completion and how many students are competing. The number of students who will make the finals will be announced during the opening meeting of the History Bee.

Question Styles

In the History Bowl, there are a number of different question styles. In the History Bee, by contrast, all questions are “pyramidal” tossups, where we start with more obscure information and move to more familiar information. Questions cover the history of the arts, sciences, religion, philosophy, languages, historical geography, recent history and the history of sports and entertainment in addition to the usual social, political, and military history. In the final rounds, the questions are, on average, slightly longer and more difficult.

Resources for Training

The Official Study Guide for both high school and middle school students is available here for download. This contains both a list of topics that can be referenced in our tournaments and some strategies for preparation. Please note that the study guide is meant to be a starting point for study and not meant to be all-encompassing – topics will be referenced in our tournaments that are not explicitly mentioned in the study guide.

Past questions used at our tournaments in Europe are usually your best resource for practicing. We use new questions each year, but the people, places, and events in history that are referenced in questions from one year to the next are usually quite similar.

Please also see NAQT’s (National Academic Quiz Tournaments) “You gotta know” pages and www.quizbowlpackets.com (though this has a heavy American emphasis and references all subjects) and our Resources Page from our main USA website. Please note that the questions you’ll find here have more American history content than the questions we use in Europe.