Based on systemic functional linguistics, an analysis of ideational, textual and interpersonal meanings of history discourse is conducted, and then the ways of applying systemic functional linguistics to history discourse analysis from transitivity, theme and appraisal resources are illustrated, which demonstrates the role of process verbs, participants and circumstances in the construction of ideational meaning of history discourse; the role of theme, nominalization and conjunction in the construction of textual meaning of history discourse; the role of appraisal resources in the construction of interpersonal meaning. Applying systemic functional linguistics to history discourse analysis is of great importance to the improvement of English language learners' history literacy.