One of the problems in learning history is that the students could only understand the contents of learning material without understanding it in depth. Such circumstance makes the students less able to think critically in interpreting historical events. This article examines how discovery learning model and CTL learning model become a solution to develop students' critical thinking skills in historical learning. This descriptive qualitative approach was used in this research. The data was conducted by interviews and literature review of previous  studies, research journals, books  and  other reliable sources.  From our analysis, the discovery learning and Contextual Teaching and Learning (CTL) are learning models that provide a systematical learning process to improving student`s critical thinking skill. Discovery learning and  CTL  help  teachers  to  make  a  connection  between  learning  materials  and  student`s  real-world situations and encourage students to connect their knowledge and praxis in their lives as a family or the member of society. The concept of learning models is not exclusive, but it can be combined with other learning models, such as process skills learning, experiment learning, demonstrations, discussions, and so on. The implementation of students` activities, which tend to construct their knowledge, educate the student to think critically through inquiry process or find their own problems, freedom of questioning, and applying learning community