List of speeches

Before the 1st century

• c.570 BC : The Buddha gives his first sermon, Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta, at Sarnath
• 431 BC: "Pericles's Funeral Oration" by the Greek statesman Pericles, significant because it departed from the typical formula of Athenian funeral speeches and was a glorification of Athens' achievements, designed to stir the spirits of a nation at war
• 399 BC: "The Apology of Socrates", Plato's version of the speech given by the philosopher Socrates, defending himself against charges of being a man "who corrupted the young, refused to worship the gods, and created new deities."
• 330 BC: "On the Crown" by the Greek orator Demosthenes, which illustrated the last great phase of political life in Athens
• 63 BC: "Catiline Orations", given by Marcus Tullius Cicero, the consul of Rome, exposing to the Roman Senate the plot of Lucius Sergius Catilina and his friends to overthrow the Roman government
• 44 BC: "The Funeral Oration of Roman Dictator", Julius Caesar, delivered by Mark Antony after his assassination, rephrased by William Shakespeare in ''Julius Caesar''

  Pre-19th century

• 30: The Sermon on the Mount, a compilation of the sayings of Jesus, epitomizing his moral teaching.
• 632: The Farewell Sermon, delivered by the Islamic prophet, Muhammad some weeks before his death.
• 1095: Beginning of the Christian Crusades by Pope Urban II at the Council of Clermont.
• 1203: The Baljuna Covenant, an oath sworn by Temüjin, the future Genghis Khan, at his lowest point.
• 1521: The Here I Stand speech of Martin Luther, defending himself at the Diet of Worms.
• 1588: Speech to the Troops at Tilbury by Elizabeth I of England, in preparation for repelling an expected invasion by the Spanish Armada.
• 1599: St Crispin's Day Speech by William Shakespeare as part of his history play Henry V has been famously portrayed by Laurence Olivier to raise British spirits during the Second World War, and by Kenneth Branagh in the 1989 film Henry V, and it made famous the phrase "band of brothers".
• 1601: The Golden Speech by Elizabeth I of England, in which she revealed that it would be her final Parliament and spoke of the respect she had for the country, her position, and the parliamentarians themselves.
• 1630: A Model of Christian Charity by Puritan leader and Massachusetts Governor John Winthrop, in which the phrase "City Upon a Hill" was used and became popular in the North American colonies.
• 1681–1704: The sermons and funeral orations of French bishop and theologian Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet during his tenure as the bishop of Meaux Cathedral, whose sermons preached the divine right of kings during the reign of Louis XIV, and who delivered memorable orations across Europe.
• 1741: Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, a sermon by theologian Jonathan Edwards, noted for the glimpse it provides into the ideas of the religious Great Awakening of 1730–1755 in the United States.
• 1775: Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death! by U.S. colonial patriot Patrick Henry to the Second Virginia Convention.
• 1791: Abolish the Slave Trade, British Parliamentarian William Wilberforce's four-hour speech to the House of Commons.
• 1792: The Deathless Sermon, given by William Carey during the decline of Hyper-Calvinism in England.
• 1793: The Manifesto of the Enragés, given by Jacques Roux to the National Convention, demanding the abolition of private property and class society in the name of the sans-culottes. Remarkable as an early precursor to socialist and communist thought.

  Nineteenth century

• 1803: Speech From the Dock by the Irish nationalist Robert Emmet.
• 1805: Red Jacket's speech defending Native American religion.
• 1823: President James Monroe's State of the Union Address to Congress in which he first stated the Monroe Doctrine.
• 1837: The American Scholar speech given by Ralph Waldo Emerson to the Phi Beta Kappa Society at the First Parish in Cambridge in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
• 1838: Abraham Lincoln's Lyceum Address, delivered to the Young Men's Lyceum of Springfield, Illinois on January 27, 1838, discusses citizenship in a democratic republic and internal threats to its institutions.
• 1838: The "Divinity School Address", a speech Ralph Waldo Emerson gave to the graduating class of Harvard Divinity School.
• 1851: Ain't I A Woman?, extemporaneously delivered by abolitionist Sojourner Truth at a Women's Convention in Akron, Ohio.
• 1854: The Peoria speech, made in Peoria, Illinois on October 16, 1854, was with its specific arguments against slavery, an important step in Abraham Lincoln's political ascension.
• 1856: The Crime against Kansas speech was delivered on the US Senate floor on May 19–20, 1856 by Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts, a radical Republican, about the conflicts in "bleeding Kansas."
• 1858: A House Divided, in which candidate for the U.S. Senate Abraham Lincoln, speaking of the pre-Civil War United States, quoted Matthew 12:25 and said, "A house divided against itself cannot stand."
• 1858: American Infidelity, an anti-slavery speech delivered in the United States Congress by Joshua Giddings
• 1859: Abolitionist John Brown's last speech.
• 1860: Cooper Union Address by candidate for U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, in which Lincoln elaborated his views on slavery, affirming that he did not wish it to be expanded into the western territories and claiming that the Founding Fathers would agree with this position.
• 1861: The Cornerstone speech by Alexander Stephens, vice president of the Confederate States of America, in which he set forth the differences between the constitution of the Confederacy and that of the United States, laid out causes for the American Civil War, and defended slavery.
• 1861: Abraham Lincoln's First Inaugural Address, on the eve of the American Civil War.
• 1861: Abraham Lincoln's Fourth of July Address, a written statement sent to the U.S. Congress, recounts the initial stages of the American Civil War and sets out Abraham Lincoln's analysis of the southern slave states rebellion as well as Lincoln's thoughts on the war and American society.
• 1862: The Blood and Iron speech by Prussian Minister-President Otto von Bismarck on the unification of Germany.
• 1863: The Gettysburg Address by Abraham Lincoln, resolving that government "of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."
• 1865: Lincoln's Second Inaugural, in which the President sought to avoid harsh treatment of the defeated South.
• 1873: The "Is it a Crime for a Citizen of the United States to Vote?" speech by Susan B. Anthony, who in her effort to introduce women's suffrage into the United States asked her fellow citizens "how can the “consent of the governed” be given if the right to vote be denied?"
• 1877: The Surrender of Nez Perce Chief Joseph, pledging to "fight no more forever."
• 1880: Dostoyevsky's Pushkin Speech, a speech delivered by Fyodor Dostoyevsky in honour of the Russian poet Alexander Pushkin.
• 1890–1900s: Acres of Diamonds speeches by Temple University President Russell Conwell, the central idea of which was that the resources to achieve all good things were present in one's own community.
• 1893: Swami Vivekananda's address at the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago, in which the Indian sage introduced Hinduism to North America.
• 1895: The Atlanta Exposition Speech, an address on the topic of race relations given by Booker T. Washington.
• 1896: Cross of Gold by U.S. presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan, advocating bimetallism.

  Twentieth century

Pre-World War I and World War I

• 1900: Hun Speech by Wilhelm II, the emperor's reaction to the Boxer Rebellion in which he demands to counter the insurgency with brutal force.
• 1901: Votes for Women, by the American writer Mark Twain.
• 1906: I warn the Government, by Conservative member F.E. Smith in the British House of Commons.
• 1910: The Man in the Arena, by U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt, quoted by President Richard Nixon and cited by South Africa President Nelson Mandela.
• 1915: Ireland Unfree Shall Never Be at Peace, by Irish Nationalist Patrick Pearse, significant in the lead-up to the Easter Rising of 1916.
• 1917: War Message to Congress by U.S. President Woodrow Wilson.
• 1917: The April Theses, a series of ten directives issued by Vladimir Lenin upon his return to Petrograd from his exile in Switzerland
• 1918: Fourteen Points by Woodrow Wilson, laying out the terms for the end of World War I.

  Inter-war years and World War II

• 1930: Allahabad Address by Muhammad Iqbal. Presented the idea of a separate homeland for Indian Muslims which was ultimately realized in the form of Pakistan.
• 1932: The Bomber Will Always Get Through. a phrase used by English statesman Stanley Baldwin in a House of Commons speech, "A Fear For The Future."
• 1933: You Cannot Take Our Honour by Otto Wels, the only German Parliamentarian to speak against the Enabling Act, which took the power of legislation away from the Parliament and handed it to Adolf Hitler's cabinet.
• 1933: The Only Thing We Have to Fear Is Fear Itself, from the first inaugural address of U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
• 1933: Atatürk's Tenth Year Speech, given by the President Mustafa Kemal Atatürk in Ankara Hippodrome.
• 1934: Every Man A King, a phrase used in many speeches by Louisiana Governor Huey Long.
• 1934: Speech of Gallipoli by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk
• 1936: Address to the League of Nations by the Emperor Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia on the invasion of his country by Benito Mussolini of Italy.
• 1936: Unamuno's Last Lecture by Miguel de Unamuno, in which he criticized the Spanish Nationalists.
• 1939: The Luckiest Man on the Face of the Earth, by baseball player Lou Gehrig upon his retirement from the New York Yankees.
• 1939: King George VI of the United Kingdom delivers a radio address at the outbreak of World War II calling for his subjects in Britain and the Empire to stand firm in the dark days ahead.
• 1939: Reichstag Speech, also known as Hitler's prophecy speech. Amid rising international tensions Adolf Hitler tells the German public and the world that the outbreak of war would mean the end of European Jewry.
• 1940: The Presidential address by Muhammad Ali Jinnah to the All India Muslim League's session in Lahore, 1940 on passing of Lahore Resolution also known as Pakistan Resolution.
• 1940: The Norway Debate speeches, where Neville Chamberlain, Winston Churchill defended the Chamberlain government's war policies Clement Attlee, Archibald Sinclair, Roger Keyes, Leo Amery, Arthur Greenwood, Herbert Morrison, David Lloyd George, and others.
• 1940: The Appeal of 18 June, French leader Charles de Gaulle's radio broadcast from London, the beginning of the Resistance to German occupation during World War II.
• 1940: Blood, Toil, Tears, and Sweat, a phrase used by U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt in 1897 but popularized by Winston Churchill in the first of three inspirational radio addresses during the opening months of World War II.
• 1940: We Shall Fight on the Beaches, from the second radio talk by Winston Churchill, promising to never surrender.
• 1940: This Was Their Finest Hour, the third address by Winston Churchill, giving a confident view of the military situation and rallying the British people.
• 1940: Never Was So Much Owed by So Many to So Few by Winston Churchill, speaking in another radio talk about the air and naval defenders of Great Britain.
• 1940: The final speech in The Great Dictator by Charlie Chaplin in the role of a Jewish barber, in which he demanded solidarity between all people and a return to values like peace, empathy and freedom.
• 1940: Arsenal of Democracy, a radio address by U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who warned against a sense of complacency if Britain were to fall to the Axis powers.
• 1941: Three Sermons in Defiance of the Nazis, in which German Bishop Clemens August Graf von Galen issued forceful, public denunciations of Nazi Germany's euthanasia programs and persecution of the Catholic Church.
• 1941: Four Freedoms, in which Franklin Delano Roosevelt outlined goals for peace but called for a massive build-up of U.S. arms production.
• 1941: A Date Which Will Live in Infamy, post-Pearl Harbor speech to the U.S. Congress in which Franklin Delano Roosevelt called for a declaration of war against Japan.
• 1941: Declaration of war against United States by the German Führer, German Chancellor, and Führer of the Nazi Party, Adolf Hitler, in which he announced Germany has declared war on the United States.
• 1942: Quit India by Mohandas K. Gandhi also known as Mahatma Gandhi, calling for determined, but nonviolent, resistance against British colonial rule.
• 1942: The Forgotten People by the Australian Liberal Party leader Sir Robert Menzies, defining and exalting the nation's middle class.
• 1942: Slovak, cast off your parasite! by Jozef Tiso, president of the Slovak State, defending Slovakia's role in the Holocaust.
• 1942: Hitler's Stalingrad speech by the German Führer, German Chancellor, and Führer of the Nazi Party, Adolf Hitler, talking about the ongoing Battle of Stalingrad.
• 1943: Do You Want Total War? by Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels, who exhorted the Germans to continue the war even though it would be long and difficult.
• 1943: A page of glory...never to be written were two secret speeches made by Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler in which for the first time a high-ranking member of the Nazi government spoke openly of the ongoing extermination of the European Jews.
• 1944: The First Bayeux speech, delivered by General Charles de Gaulle of France in the context of liberation after the Normandy landings.
• 1944: Patton's Speech, a profanity-laden speech to the United States Third Army by United States General George S. Patton, calling for the troops' bravery in spite of their fears. It was given prior to the Normandy landings.
• 1944: Paris Liberated by Charles de Gaulle on the day he took up governmental duties at the War Ministry in Paris.
• 1945: Hirohito surrender broadcast, recorded by Japanese Emperor Hirohito and broadcast as an unconditional capitulation to the Allies.