25 Best Free PowerPoint PPT History Presentation Templates for 2021

Your history PPT template doesn't need to be a blast from the past. Use a modern and creative pre-built template to create the best possible presentation. A pre-built template will also allow you to avoid starting your desk from scratch. 

In this article, we'll take a look at loads of history presentation templates. We'll start with Envato Elements' premium history PowerPoint templates and GraphicRiver's history-themed PPT templates. And then, we'll explore 25 PowerPoint history templates free to download. 

Let's dive right in and find that perfect history PPT template!

Top Premium History PowerPoint Templates on Envato Elements for 2022 (Unlimited Use)

You've got the crucial task of presenting to an audience. Getting your hands on a suitable template is that critical first step. It could make or break your presentation. Take your time at this early stage and ensure you're best equipped to impress your audience.   

An Envato Elements subscription is an investment that helps improve any creative projects. Enjoy unlimited access to millions of creative assets with an active Envato Elements subscription. 

Pre-built PPT templates help you work around your limited skills and create like a pro. Best of all you don't have to spend too much time designing. Work smart and get a good head start on your projects by leaving the designing to the experts. 

Working with free history PowerPoint template backgrounds can get risky. Be aware of potential limitations and figure out if you're able to deal with them. Issues to watch out for: 

• only a background image
• limited features and having to spend a lot of time on design
• used by many others and lacks uniqueness 
• not a modern design

Do you want to test out premium templates before signing up for Envato Elements? Check out GraphicRiver's selection of best PowerPoint templates for history presentations. Test out any premium trending PPT templates with its pay-per-download model. We'll take a look at some top options from GraphicRiver in the next section. 

5 Best Premium History PowerPoint Templates on Envato Elements & GraphicRiver (for 2022)

Here are five of the best PowerPoint templates for history presentations that are trending now:

1. Diurna - Monochrome PowerPoint Template

This monochrome template helps you create a historic newspaper-style presentation. Lay out all your content and create presentations like a pro with Diurna. It's got loads of premium features like:

• infographics
• section breaks
• mockups
• animated slides, and more

2. Forkisa - History PowerPoint Template

Forkisa comes with 30 unique PowerPoint slides with a high-quality handcrafted design. It's perfect for presentations that have a lot of historic images to display. Museums, businesses, or teachers who need to create a history-themed deck will find this template helpful. 

3. History PowerPoint Template

This minimalistic template has a modern fashion feel to it. Include your history-related content. Notice how this contemporary in-trend template transforms to fit it. That's the beauty of a premium minimalistic modern template. It works well for just about any topic or industry. 

4. Timeline Infographic History PPT Template

This timeline template is a game changer! It comes with over 40 slides, 49 color schemes, and animated timeline versions. Best of all, this template will equip you with horizontal and vertical templates to help you create any historical presentation.

5. Family Book - History PPT Template

Research into any family's history and display its genealogy with this premium template. Family Book comes with 16 unique fully animated slides, five color schemes, and background color versions. Preserve the history of any family with style! 

25 Top Free PowerPoint PPT History Presentation Templates Designs to Download for 2022

Did you know about Envato's monthly free offerings? It's an opportunity for anyone new to premium creative files to give it a try—at no cost. 

Here's the deal:

• Envato Elements offer 12 hand-selected creative files every month. These are files like presentations, fonts, videos, and more. Create a free account to download this month's free premium files now.  
• Envato Market offers seven new freebies every month. Website templates, WP plugins, graphics, music tracks, and more are yours to enjoy. Log in to Envato Market to get this month's handpicked premium freebies.

It's time to dive into our selection of 25 free PowerPoint templates for history found on the internet:

1. Timeline - Free PowerPoint Templates for History

This is a single slide history PPT template free download with a horizontal timeline that covers five years. 

2. Free Famous Event in History Presentation

This is a dark blue history PPT template free download with white fonts and graphics. This template works well for historical reports or school projects.

3. Free Women's History Month Presentation

This PowerPoint history template is free to download. It comes with a line illustration of a women's face, a plant, and other abstract elements. It uses earthy tones. 

4. Free Black History Month Presentation

This template uses a colorful African motif against a contrasting background. 

5. Free Native American Heritage Month Presentation

This is a history PPT template free download that uses geometric Native American design motifs. 

6. State History Report - Free History PowerPoint Template Background

This template comes with a light background color. It's got navy and black fonts that stand out well. 

7. Timeline - PowerPoint History Template Free to Download

This is another single slide history PPT template free download with a horizontal timeline. It covers five-periods.

8. Free Irish American Heritage Month Presentation

This uses the Irish flag colors. Students creating a report on Irish American history can use this history PPT template free download.

9. Free Italian American Heritage Month Presentation

This template comes with the Italian flag colors—green, white, and red. Use it if you're a student who needs to commemorate Italian American Heritage Month. 

10. Free History Education PowerPoint Template

This history PPT template free downloads main image is a lush green grass with a historical building against a blue sky.

11. Free Day in History PowerPoint Timeline Template

This uses a free timeline generator. It's a simple timeline to present happenings of a single day on a slide. 

12. Free Periods in European History PowerPoint Timeline

This history PPT template free download is a vertical timeline, and it looks like a Gantt chart.

13. Socrates - Free History PowerPoint Template Backgrounds

Socrates is a Greek philosopher from the 5th century BCE. This template has an image of his statue and some ancient Greek buildings. 

14. Knight - PowerPoint History Template Free to Download

This template was made with warriors, wars, knights, history, battles, and education in mind. 

15. Free History Book PowerPoint Template

This uses shades of blue with an image of a book. The idea behind this is, a book is an essential element to recording the history of humanity.

16. Free Egyptian Historical Slide PowerPoint Template

This history PPT template free download uses an illustration of a camel, cactus, and a couple of pyramids. Anyone can use this template for anything relating to Egypt.  

17. Old World Map - Free Best PowerPoint Template for History Presentations

The main image of this history PPT template free download is a line world map on an old textured and colored paper.

18. Free Egyptian Pyramid Symbol PowerPoint Template

This template comes with a deep purplish-red background and an image of a pharaoh with floral elements. 

19. Free Vertical History PowerPoint Diagram

This vertical timeline uses the years to visualize the flow of time. 

20. Line Belt History PowerPoint Diagram

This uses a line belt and circles. It's a multicolored timeline and makes use of icons.

21. Flat Medical Icon - Free History PowerPoint Template Backgrounds

This template comes with one cover and two internal slides. It's got black fonts on a white background

22. Free Black History Month Template 

This history PPT template free download helps you create a Black History Month presentation with zero budget. Choose between a PowerPoint template or a Google Slides theme. 

23. Civilization - Free Best PowerPoint Template for History Presentations 

Civilization comes with a sepia tone and uses an image of the Colosseum from Italy. This template can work on Microsoft PowerPoint 2007 and 2010. 

24. Queen - PowerPoint History Template Free to Download

This royal history PPT template free download is for students needing to present about the historic royals. It's got a red background with gold and black elements.  

25. Crown - Free PowerPoint Template for History

This has a crown image with bokeh background. This template is also for historic royal presentations by students.  

How to Edit Your History PowerPoint Template Quickly

Now that you've got your history PowerPoint template, you're ready to customize it. To help guide you thorough the customization process, we put together a simple tutorial that you can follow. 

For this tutorial, I'll be using the premium template, Forkisa.

This history PowerPoint template features a beautiful design and contains thirty unique slides. The history template ppt is fully editable uses free fonts. 

You can follow these steps for your own history PowerPoint presentation: 

1. Choose Your Slides

The first step in creating the ideal presentation is to pick the slides that work for your particular presentation. The premium history PowerPoint templates come with many slides. Not all of them will work for your presentation. Simply delete the ones you don't want to use and duplicate the ones that you want to use for more than one slide.

2. Paste in Your Text

Next, we'll add in our content.

Once you've got your text copied, double-click the text place holders on each slide and paste in your text.

3. Add in Your Images

As mentioned, history PowerPoint presentations work best with images. Most premium templates make it easy for you to add in your images.

In Forkisa, there are image placeholders. All you need to do is click the image icons. This opens up your computer folders where you can select the image that you want to add to that specific slide. 

4. Resize Elements

Once we've added in all our content, we may want to resize our elements. The images and text we've added may alter the design based on their size. So resizing may be necessary to bring the design back into balance.

To resize an element, click and drag the corner of your text and images. You can then resize your elements to where you see appropriate.

5. Add Transitions

Transitions are the final step of the editing process. They help add a professional touch to your presentations.

To add in transitions, click the Transitions tab on the top menu header. A menu bar pops up with all the transitions available to you. To preview each transition, click the Preview option on the far left hand corner of the header. Once you find the transition you like for the slide, click the specific transition and it'll be applied.

Let's now go over a few quick design tips.

5 Quick PowerPoint PPT History Presentation Slide Design Tips for 2022

Many little tips can assist you in creating impactful presentations each time. Here are five quick tips to get you on the right path:

1. Have a Mix of Dark and Light Solid Color Slides

Gone are the days where all slides in a deck had the same background color. Mix up or alternate the background colors between solid colors dark and light. It helps each slide look different and creates engaging visual effects. 

2. Add Animations to Timelines

Use animations to bring your presentation to life. Get your hands on a premium template that's got all these infographic animations taken care of. Animation helps you add sections of an infographic into the slides as you present them. This makes it easier for your audience to follow your presentation. 

Check out this tutorial to learn more about how to animate a chart: 

• 
  Microsoft PowerPoint
  How to Simply Animate Charts in PowerPoint in 60 Seconds
  Andrew Childress

3. Leave Plenty of White Space

White space is unused space in a slide—not always white. Give each element on your slide enough importance by giving it ample white space. Stay away from too many images, graphics, and text on a slide to help your audience stay focused.

4. Keep It Fun With Audio and YouTube Videos

History can be a challenging subject to present. Keep things fun and engaging by using resources available online. Include a five minute audio or video to explain a complicated topic better. 

Learn how to add audio and YouTube videos in PowerPoint with these tutorials:

• 
  Office
  How to Add Audio to PowerPoint Presentations
  Bob Flisser
• 
  Microsoft PowerPoint
  How to Insert a YouTube Video into Powerpoint in 60 Seconds
  Andrew Childress

5. Use High-Quality Historic Graphics

Visuals are the primary design element and the focal point of slides. So, you must use appropriate photos or graphics to draw attention. 

Once you sign up for Envato Elements, you'll get unlimited access to over a million high-quality historic-themed graphics and stock photos. Use these visual assets to add that extra spice to your presentation.  

Top 5 Trends For History PowerPoint Templates

When delivering history PowerPoint presentations, it's important to keep your design up to date. To help you create a modern presentation, we've detailed the top five design trends for history PowerPoint templates:

1. Include Image Slides

Pictures are the number one way to add interest to your presentation. History PowerPoint presentations will allow you to add many images. You can dedicate whole slides for a collage of images. 

2. Use Infographics

History presentations by nature can be quite dry. Infographics really add another layer of interest to your presentations. They'll keep your audience engaged. Use infographics that help illustrate your slides content the best.

3. Showcase Timelines

Timelines are essential when you're giving a history PowerPoint presentation. Vertical and horizontal timelines work well here. You can even stretch out the timeline to many slides if there are a lot of important dates. 

4. Black & White

A black and white color scheme can work incredibly well for your history PPT template. They always look stylish and will highlight your history slides. You can even have your images be black and white as well. This will give your slides an older type vibe to them, which is desirable with history PowerPoint presentations. 

5. Use Creative Fonts

Creative fonts add more interest to your history PowerPoint templates. They give your slides a more historical feel to them and help you tell are more compelling story. Any font that looks like it's antiquated will work here. 

Need even more history template PPT? Be sure to check out the next section!

Discover More Top PowerPoint Presentation Theme Designs

Discover multipurpose PowerPoint templates that you can use for your upcoming history presentation. A good PPT template will be professional, modern, minimal, clean, and versatile enough. 

Check out the templates from these articles:

• 
  Microsoft PowerPoint
  35 Clean PowerPoint Templates (PPTs) With Minimalist Designs (For 2021)
  Laura Spencer
• 
  Microsoft PowerPoint
  20 Free Modern PowerPoint PPT Templates With Minimalist Designs (2021)
  Brenda Barron
• 
  Presentations
  30 PPT Templates: To Make Simple Modern PowerPoint Presentations in 2022
  Sean Hodge

5 Benefits of Using the Best PowerPoint Presentation Templates With Pro Designs (In 2022)

Are you unsure whether you should grab a premium template, hire a graphic designer, or design your presentation yourself?

We've compiled five compelling reasons for you to simply get a premium PowerPoint template to create a great PowerPoint presentation: 

1. You've got a pro presentation. The premium templates are designed by professionals. You'll always be putting your best foot forward in your presentations with a premium template.
2. You save money. Hiring a graphic designer is incredibly expensive. Premium templates are a fraction of the cost and will deliver the same great quality. 
3. You save yourself the headache. Designing your PowerPoint yourself is a huge time commitment. If you aren't a professional graphic designer, you might not even create an adequate design. Premium templates put a professional design in your hands right from the start. 
4. You can create unique presentations. The premium template designs have plenty of creative designs. This will help trigger new ideas that you can put into your presentation. 
5. You're in control. All the pro templates are fully customizable. You can change every aspect of the design that you see fit. That way you won't have to give up any control of the design. 

Benefits of Envato Elements (The Power of Unlimited Use)

Envato Elements is a unique service. It's a flat-rate subscription that includes thousands of great PPT templates for a single flat-rate price.

Sign up for Envato Elements. You'll get access to thousands of unlimited use graphics and templates. Choose from web themes to presentation templates, and more—all for one low price. 

Common PowerPoint Questions Answered (FAQ)

Still learning Microsoft PowerPoint? You might have questions about how to work with your history PowerPoint template file in the app. Let's look at five of the most common questions and help you learn the solution to each of them: 

1. Is There a Free Version of PowerPoint?

Yes, there is! There's an online version that's free to use. But the online version doesn't have the full functionality that the full version has. To find out about those differences, check out the article below:

• 
  Microsoft PowerPoint
  PowerPoint Online vs. Full PowerPoint 2019 on Your Desktop
  Andrew Childress

2. Can You Print Out Your Slides?

PowerPoint makes it very easy to print out your slides. With history template PPTs, you'll often need to print out your templates. This makes it essential to know how to do this. You can find a complete guide on how to print out your slides below: 

• 
  Microsoft PowerPoint
  How to Print Your PowerPoint Slides (The Complete Guide)
  Andrew Childress

3. Can You Create a PowerPoint Presentation Quickly? 

Absolutely! PowerPoint presentations can be made in a blink of an eye. The Slide Master is your best friend when trying to put together a presentation quickly. For more information on how to edit templates quickly, view this article:

• 
  Microsoft PowerPoint
  How to Edit PowerPoint (PPT) Slide Template Layouts Quickly in 2020
  Andrew Childress

4. Can You Make Your Own Customizations in PowerPoint?

 PowerPoint is a very in depth piece of software. It allows you to edit every aspect of your slides. Whether you use a template or not, you'll have complete control over your presentation. For more details on how to edit your slides, view this article.

• 
  Microsoft PowerPoint
  How to Make Great PPT Slide Layouts in Microsoft PowerPoint 2021
  Andrew Childress

5. How Can You Share Your Presentations on Zoom?

At some point, you may have to give your PowerPoint over Zoom. It'll be essential for you to understand how to make this work. Don't worry. We've got an in depth Zoom guide for you to check out below:

• 
  Microsoft PowerPoint
  How to Share PowerPoints Presentations in Zoom Webinar Meetings in 2020
  Andrew Childress

Let's now take a look at how you can make exceptional PowerPoints.

Learn More About Making Great PowerPoint Presentations in 2022

How to Use PowerPoint (Ultimate Tutorial Guide) is a valuable guide for creating presentations. It's a compilation of PPT-themed how-to tutorials. This guide will help you improve your presentation decks step-by-step. 

Here are three sample tutorials:

• 
  Microsoft PowerPoint
  How to Make a Timeline in PowerPoint With Templates
  Andrew Childress
• 
  Microsoft PowerPoint
  How to Learn PowerPoint Quickly (Complete 2021 Beginner's Guide + Video)
  Andrew Childress
• 
  Microsoft PowerPoint
  How to Share Your PowerPoint Presentation Online (For Free)
  Andrew Childress

Get a Premium History PowerPoint Template Now!

Do you urgently need the best PowerPoint templates for history presentations? Head on over to Envato Elements. Download and use any history PowerPoint templates (or any other creative assets) with an active monthly subscription. 

But, if you need to test it out first before signing up, check out GraphicRiver's collection of PowerPoint templates for history presentations. Also, have a look at the weekly latest new designs for inspiration.

There are loads of premium options out there for you. It takes time to find the perfect template design for your history presentation. So, it's time to get started. 

Subscribe to Envato Elements today and start creating!

Editorial Note: This post has been updated with contributions from Daniel Strongin. Daniel is a freelance instructor for Envato Tuts+.