Inaugural Contest Ends March 30, More Than $60,000 in Cash & Prizes to be Awarded for Researching Top 10 People, Events, Places

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Santa Barbara, CA — February 5, 2009 —Last month this country was a part of living history with the inauguration of our 44th president, Barack Obama. Now secondary students can put the history they watched unfold into context by researching the top 10 people, events and places they think shaped history, as part of ABC-CLIO'sannual research competition for secondary students. The winning teams of secondary students working in collaboration with their social studies teachers and school library media specialists will receive more than $60,000 in cash and prizes. The competition ends March 30, 2009.

Coached by their teacher and/or school library media specialist, student teams participating in the competition will select the top 10 people, events or places that have shaped the course of history and then defend them and present their research findings to ABC-CLIO in an electronic format such as a slide show, online essay, video or animation, or an audio podcast. Entries should be submitted in standards-aligned curriculum categories for high school and middle grades. For high school, the categories are U.S. History, Ancient World History, Modern World History, U.S. Government and Civics, and Geography. For middle grades, the categories are Ancient Civilizations, World History and U.S. History and Government. To participate and be eligible for the grand prizes, teams should visitwww.abc-clio.com/historyuncoveredto register.

"Today's students live in exciting times, and our competition gives them a unique opportunity to think critically about the past and how it shaped the world we live in today," said Becky Snyder, president, ABC-CLIO. "Teams from around the country are already working hard on their entries for this exciting competition, and we want to remind students and teachers everywhere about this great opportunity to think historically and win classroom resources."

To conduct their research, teams must use and cite one or more of ABC-CLIO'seight online history databases. For schools not currently subscribing to the databases, free access to all eight databases is available for 90 days. Entries will be judged in April 2009 by a panel of leading historians and history educators, and grand-prize winners will be announced in May 2009.

High school and middle grades grand-prize-winning teams will receive a digital whiteboard, a $500 school site cash award, a one-year subscription to ABC-CLIO's award-winning online history databases and a student cash award for each participating team member. There will be five high school grand-prize winners and three middle grades grand-prize winners — one per curriculum-aligned category.

About ABC-CLIO

Founded in 1955, ABC-CLIO is an award-winning publisher of reference titles, academic and general interest books, electronic resources, and books for librarians and other professionals. Today, ABC-CLIO publishes under five well-respected imprints.

ABC-CLIOserves the history profession, history teachers, and students and scholars of history with a complete line of award-winning databases, books, and eBooks, along with social studies reference and curriculum resources for middle and high school libraries and classrooms.Greenwood Presspublishes high-quality, authoritative reference books and general interest topics across the secondary and higher education curriculum.Praegeris widely regarded for scholarly and professional books in the social sciences and humanities, with emphasis in modern history, military studies, psychology, business, current events and social issues, international affairs, politics, visual and performing arts, and literature.Praeger Security Internationalpublishes insightful and timely material on international security, including defense and foreign policy, strategy, regional security, military history, and terrorism.Libraries Unlimitedpublishes professional materials for librarians, media specialists, and teachers.

ABC-CLIO's corporate headquarters is located in Santa Barbara, Calif., with offices in Denver, Colo., and Oxford, England. For more information, visit the ABC-CLIO website at:

www.abc-clio.com.

For more information, press only:

Lisa Wolfe, L. Wolfe Communications, 773-227-1049,wolfe@lwolfe.com

News Source : Inaugural Contest Ends March 30, More Than $60,000 in Cash & Prizes to be Awarded for Researching Top 10 People, Events, Places Shaping History