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The misfortunes hardest to bear are these which never came.


Rock, as viewed from above. Long Beach, Sandy Bay. April 2012.

For today's Sunday Top Five I thought that I'd visit the subject of orations. Yes, today I tackle My Top Five Six Favourite Speeches From History!

  • 399 BCE: The Apology of Socrates, Plato's version of the speech given by Socrates, who was defending himself against charges of corrupting the young, refusing to worship the gods, and creating new deities.

  • 1851: Ain't I A Woman?, delivered by abolitionist Sojourner Truth at a Women's Convention in Akron, Ohio.

  • 1933: The Only Thing We Have to Fear Is Fear Itself, from the first inaugural address of U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt at the heart of the Great Depression.

  • 1949: The Light on the Hill by Australia Prime Minister Ben Chifley, paying tribute to the country's labour movement.

  • 1956: On the Personality Cult and its Consequences by Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, critical of the regime of Stalin. Also known as the "Secret Speech".

  • 1963: I Have a Dream, Lincoln Memorial speech by Martin Luther King Jr. in which the civil rights leader called for racial equality and an end to discrimination. [Listen to it here...]
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