Delighted to see that the English newspaper ‘The Guardian’ is writing about the great speeches of the 20th century. These speeches are being offered daily from 21st April – 4th May:
No 1: Winston Churchill “We shall fight on the beaches”
Delivered to the House of Commons on June 4, 1940.
No 2: John F Kennedy “Ask not what your country can do for you”
Delivered at his presidential inauguration on January 20, 1961.
No 3: Nelson Mandela “An ideal for which I am prepared to die”
Statement from the dock at the opening of his trial on charges of sabotage, supreme court of South Africa, Pretoria, on April 20, 1964.
No 4: Harold Macmillan “No going back”
In South Africa, Macmillan delivered one of the defining statements of British policy in the 20th century, on February 3, 1960.
No 5: Franklin D Roosevelt “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself”
Delivered at his inauguration in Washington on March 4, 1933.
No 6: Nikita Khrushchev “The cult of the individual”
Speech delivered to the 20th congress of the Communist party of the USSR in Moscow on February 25, 1956.
No 7: Emmeline Pankhurst “Freedom or death”
Delivered in Hartford, Connecticut, on November 3, 1913.
No 8: Martin Luther King “I have a dream”
Delivered at the Lincoln Memorial, Washington, on August 28, 1963.
No 9: Charles de Gaulle “The flame of French resistance”
June, 1940.
No 10: Margaret Thatcher “The lady’s not for turning”
October 10, 1980.
No 11: Jawaharlal Nehru “A tryst with destiny”
August 14, 1947.
No 12: Virginia Woolf “A room of one’s own”
1928.
No 13: Aneurin Bevan “We have to act up to different standards”
December 5, 1956.
No 14: Earl Spencer “The most hunted person of a modern age”
At the funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales, on September 6, 1997.
You can read transcripts of all the speeches, and listen to speeches, at www.guardian.co.uk/greatspeeches
What do you think of the list? What speech is your favorite?
What speech would you add to the list?
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