HIST1000 History for Today

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• HIST1000 History for Today
• (by Fred Cheung)
• Learning History via Speeches
• Main Reference
• Safire, William, ed. Lend Me Your Ears Great
  Speeches in History. Revised and Extended
  Edition. New York W.W. Norton Co., 2004.

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• I. Memorials and Patriotic Speeches
• Pericles Extols the Glory that is Greece at the
  Funeral of its Fallen Sons (pp. 31-36)
• Pericles was an hypnotized orator, a great
  general, a practical politician, an idealistic
  democrat and a stern imperialist.
• The purpose of this speech was to use the
  occasion of a eulogy for the fallen to examine
  the cause for which they fell. (p. 42)

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• And this our form, as committed not to the few
  but to the whole body of the people, is called a
  democracy. (p. 42)
• There is visible in the same persons an
  attention to their own private concerns and those
  of the public (p. 443)

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• I saw what the polis might do for her citizens,
  and what the citizens might do for their polis.
  (cf. President John F. Kennedys Inaugural Speech
  in January 1961 Ask not what the country can do
  for you, ask what you can do for the country)

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• II. War and Revolution Speeches
• Pope Urban II Launches the First Crusade (pp.
  83-84)
• Dieu li volt God wills it! (p. 94)
• Hitler Declares Germanys Intentions (pp.
  127-133)
• Winston Churchill Braces Britons to their Task
  (pp. 134-136)

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• III. Tributes and Eulogies
• George Bernard Shaw Salutes his Friend Albert
  Einstein (pp. 206-210)
• Senator Robert F. Kennedy Speaks after the
  Assassination of Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.
  (pp. 214-216)

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• IV. Debates and Argumentation
• Cicero Rails against Catiline and his
  Conspiracies (pp. 241-247)
• Candidates Nixon and Kennedy Meet in the First
  Televised Presidential Debate (pp. 301-310)

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• V. Trials
• Martin Luther Addresses the Diet of Worms (pp.
  324-327)
• Here I stand I cannot do otherwise. God help
  me. Amen. (p. 346)

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• I. Inspirational Speeches
• Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., Ennobles the
  Civil Rights Movement at the Lincoln Memorial
  (pp. 560-565)
• I have a dream that one day this nation will
  rise up and live out the true meaning of its
  creed We hold these truths to be self-evident
  that all men are created equal.
• I have a dream that my four little children will
  one day live in a nation where they will not be
  judged by the color of their skin but by the
  content of their character. (p. 564)

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• VII. Political Speeches
• President John F. Kennedy, in his Inaugural,
  Takes up the Torch for a New Generation (pp.
  891-894)
• ( Ask not what your country can do for you ---
  ask what you can do for your country.
• (Cf. Pericles in ancient Athens, Greece, I saw
  what the polis can do for her citizens, and what
  the citizens can do for their polis.)

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• The use of antithesis
• Let us never negotiate out of fear,
• But let us never fear to negotiate.

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• The use of parallelism
• United, there is little we cannot do
• Divided, there is little we can do.
• (Cf. United we stand, divided we fall)

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• Edward Kennedys Eulogy to Senator Robert Kennedy
• Your Eminences, Your Excellencies, Mr. President
• On behalf of Mrs. Kennedy, her children, the
  parents and sisters of Robert Kennedy, I want to
  express what we feel to those who mourn with us
  today in this Cathedral and around the world.

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• We loved him as a brother, and as a father, and
  as a son. From his parents, and from his older
  brothers and sisters -- Joe and Kathleen and Jack
  -- he received an inspiration which he passed on
  to all of us. He gave us strength in time of
  trouble, wisdom in time of uncertainty, and
  sharing in time of happiness. He will always be
  by our side.

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• Love is not an easy feeling to put into words.
  Nor is loyalty, or trust, or joy. But he was all
  of these. He loved life completely and he lived
  it intensely.

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• That is the way he lived. That is what he leaves
  us.
• My brother need not be idealized, or enlarged in
  death beyond what he was in life to be
  remembered simply as a good and decent man, who
  saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering
  and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop
  it.

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• Those of us who loved him and who take him to his
  rest today, pray that what he was to us and what
  he wished for others will some day come to pass
  for all the world.

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• As he said many times, in many parts of this
  nation, to those he touched and who sought to
  touch him
• "Some men see things as they are and say why. ?
• I dream things that never were and say why not."