An On This Day article tells the story of an important event in history. It reports the important facts about what happened in an unbiased way, adds background information and reference material, and discusses the event’s historical significance.

An On This Day article is like a combination of a book report and a news story, with a focus on gathering, analyzing and presenting your research in a thoughtful way.

For help researching your On This Day article, visit the How to Research an On This Day Article page.

Also, see our example On This Day articles for additional reference:

• On This Day: President Lincoln Delivers Gettysburg Address
• On This Day: British Troops Burn White House and Capitol
• On This Day: Treaty of Versailles Signed
• On This Day: President Roosevelt Approves Japanese-American Internment

FORMAT

Articles should typically be between 300 and 700 words in total. Each article should contain at least a headline, an introduction, body text and a Sources in this Story section. For information about how to cite a source, visit the How to Cite a Source for an On This Day Article page.

Headline: This is the title of your On This Day article. Use it to state what happened as clearly and concisely as possible.

Headline examples:

• “On This Day: King Tut’s Tomb Unsealed”
• “On This Day: John Quincy Adams Elected President”

Introduction: In one short sentence, describe what happened and when. Begin the sentence by stating the event’s date.

Introduction examples:

• “On Jan. 29, 1936, the Hall of Fame ballot identified Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Honus Wagner, Christy Mathewson and Walter Johnson as baseball’s greatest players.”
• “On Jan. 19, 1966, Indira Gandhi succeeded Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri to become the first female leader of the Indian government.”

Body Text: Describe the day’s events, and include a brief summary of information needed to understand the significance of the day. This may mean that the body will contain a few sentences describing the the events leading up to your On This Day, on which you can expand on this background in your Background section. Your body text can also contain a few sentences describing what happened after your On This Day event, on which you can expand on those later developments in your Later Developments section.   How much contextual information you provide will depend on nature of the event. Some questions to keep in mind while writing: Why is this story so important? What will readers find interesting about this story? What did I learn that few people may know?

Sources in this Story: See the How to Cite a Source for an On This Day Article for guidance on your Sources in this Story section.

Articles may also contain:

Background: In this section, examine the important issues and developments that led to the On This Day event. Often, the subject of your background section will have been briefly mentioned in the body text. The background section allows you to expand on the subject and address points that might not directly relate to your On This Day event.

Background example:

• If you’re writing an On This Day article about Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, you would say in the body text that the speech was made at a cemetery for soldiers killed in the Battle of Gettysburg. You could then write a background section focused on the battle itself. Explain how the battle was fought or why it was such an important battle.

Later Developments: Write about important related events that occurred later (if there were any). When writing this section, ask: How did this event change the course of history? How are its effects experienced by people today?

Later Developments Example:

• An On this Day article about Jackie Robinson’s first game in Major League Baseball would include a Later Developments section about the rest of his career, and the continued integration of baseball.

Key Players: If the On This Day article focuses on one person, or a group of people in history, be sure to include a biography of that person or group.

Reference: The Reference section is where you would include links to Web sites with additional information, such as maps, primary documents and timelines.

Related Topics: Sometimes an On This Day will be related to other topics that do not clearly fall into one of the categories above but are still an important part of the event. We include those types of topics in this section.

Related Topics example:

• In our article, “On This Day: Galileo Faces Inquisition,” we discussed how the church punished Galileo for believing that the Earth orbited the sun. Due to the fact that Galileo has been proven correct, the writer wanted to include an account of the Vatican’s current perspective on Galileo. This wouldn’t fit as a Background, Key Player or other section. For that reason, it’s a related topic.

CHECK YOUR WORK

Once you have written a complete report, fact-check your work:

• Is every date accurate?
• Is every name spelled correctly?
• Have you listed your sources?
• If you found an interesting detail on one site, can it be confirmed on another?

Once you have confirmed that all your information is accurate, read the article one more time:

Check grammar and spelling

Ask yourself:

• Is it interesting to the reader?
• Is it cluttered with too many names, dates or facts that aren’t important?
• Will a reader be able to easily summarize why the event is important?

Great, your work is done! Now submit your story to your teacher or librarian. He or she will post the story on findingEducation.