Learning tasks are a core component of history edcuation that wants to foster historical thinking skills (competencies). An analysis of 41 videotaped history lessons of the 9th grade in swiss schools examined the tasks to find out how they potentially could to foster historical competencies. The findings show that most tasks are to be put into the category of „development“, which gives an indication of a educatory style that puts knowledge transmission at its core. But tasks that are fostering other parts of competencies have been found as well.