The 100 Best American History Research Paper Topics

American history is a complex subject loaded with material. This means that there is a wide range of topics you can select from when writing a research paper on American history. Your paper can about a specific event, person, place, or thing, or a general movement. When writing your paper, also be sure to brainstorm of some different, more thorough ideas like the long-term effects of something. Here are 100 of the best American history research topics:

1. Martin Luther King, Jr.
2. The Great Depression
3. The War of 1812
4. Peninsula Campaign
5. Fort Sumter
6. The Chicago Race Riot of 1919
7. The Gettysburg Address
8. Boston Tea Party
9. Transcontinental Railroad
10. The Cotton Gin
11. Samuel Adams
12. Any of the 50 states
13. History of Thanksgiving
14. The Mayflower
15. Marilyn Monroe
16. September 11th
17. War on drugs
18. Black Panthers
19. Ku Klux Klan
20. The Wright Brothers
21. The Beat Generation
22. Andy Warhol
23. Rosa Parks
24. Underground Railroad
25. Hurricane Katrina
26. Salem Witch Trials
27. California Gold Rush
28. Feminism
29. Seneca Falls Convention
30. Helen Keller
31. Watergate
32. Conspiracy theories
33. The Trail of Tears
34. Industrial Revolution
35. The Civil War
36. Elian Gonzalez
37. Cuban relations
38. America’s role in WWI & WWII
39. Abraham Lincoln
40. Slavery in America
41. Equal Rights Movement
42. Ferguson
43. Police brutality in America
44. The Stamp Act
45. The Indian Removal Act
46. Women’s Suffrage
47. The Berlin Wall
48. Communism in America
49. The Challenger explosion
50. Virginia Tech massacre
51. Columbine
52. The assassination of JFK
53. The Panama Canal
54. Kent State Shootings
55. The space race and moon landing
56. O.J. Simpson
57. Vietnam War
58. What role did women play in the military?
59. The Revolution
60. George Washington
61. French-Indian War
62. Alexander Graham Bell
63. Declaration of Independence
64. War on Middle East
65. George W. Bush
66. Battle of Wounded Knee
67. Practice of Voodooism
68. The Louisiana Purchase
69. American Expansion
70. Native American religion
71. The Whiskey Rebellion of 1794
72. Gold Rush
73. Immigration
74. Atomic Bomb
75. Korean War
76. Oklahoma City Bombing
77. Bay of Pigs
78. Stock Market Crash of 1929
79. Child labor
80. Dred Scott case
81. Manifest Destiny
82. Oregon Trail
83. The US Constitution
84. Lincoln-Douglas Debates
85. Thomas Nast’s political cartoons
86. Mississippi River Flood of 1927
87. Pearl Harbor
88. Amelia Earhart
89. Cold War
90. American Indian Movement
91. Iran Hostage Situation
92. Manhattan Project
93. Major inventions of the 1800s
94. Labor Unions
95. The Gilded Age
96. Marbury vs. Madison
97. Federalism
98. Muckrackers
99. American advertising
100. Propaganda