Words that ring through time: from Moses and Pericles to Obama : fifty-one of the most important speeches in history and how they changed our world

Moses bids Israel farewell --

Funeral oration by Pericles (Athens, 430 BCE) --

Cicero's first oration against Catiline (Rome, 63 BCE) --

Jesus and the blessed (Galilee, circa 30 AD) --

Muhammad : Turn thy face (Arabian peninsula, circa 620 AD) --

Urban II declares a crusade (Clermont, 1095) --

Martin Luther refuses to recant (Diet of Worms, 1521) --

Thomas More confronts his accuser (London, July 7, 1535) --

Elizabeth I faces the Armada : "I myself will be your general" (Tilbury, 1588) --

John Winthrop's "City upon a hill" (June, 1630) --

Oliver Cromwell dismisses Parliament, "In the name of God, go!" (London, April 20, 1653) --

Patrick Henry makes the case for liberty, or death (Virginia, March 25, 1775) --

Washington addresses dissidents in the army (Newburgh, March 15, 1783) --

Charles Fox assails the East India Company (London, December 1, 1783) --

Robespierre justifies terror (Paris, Feb. 5, 1794) --

Georges Danton : We must dare, dare again, always dare (Paris, September 2, 1792) --

Thomas Jefferson and the world's best hope (Washington, DC, March 4, 1801) --

Red Jacket defends Native American religions (Central New York, 1805) --

Napoleon bids farewell to the Old Guard (April 20, 1814) --

Simón Bolivar rallies South America (Angostura, September 15, 1819) --The cause of Old Ireland : Daniel O'Connell's last monster meeting (October 1, 1843) --

Karl Marx on free trade (Brussels, January 9, 1848) --

Frederick Douglass's Fourth of July speech (Rochester, New York, 1852) --

Abraham Lincoln's address at Cooper Institute (New York, February 27, 1860) --

Garibaldi addresses his troops : "To arms, then, all of you!" (Naples, September, 1860) --

Susan B. Anthony : A woman's right to suffrage : "Aren't women persons?" (Monroe County, 1873) --

William Jennings Bryan and the cross of gold (Chicago, July 9, 1896) --

King Albert of Belgium defies the Kaiser's army (Brussels, August 4, 1914) --

Padraig Pearse : Ireland unfree will never be at peace (Dublin, August 1, 1915) --

Helen Keller, Strike against war (New York, January 5, 1916) --

Woodrow Wilson's fourteen points (Washington, January 8, 1918) --

Gandhi gives voice to non-violence and non-cooperation (Abmadabad, India, March 18, 1922) --

Sun Yat-sen pleads for Pan-Asian resistance to Western imperialism (Kobe, Japan, November 28, 1924) --

Haile Selassie pleads for his country (Geneva, June 30, 1936) --

Franklin Roosevelt sees the ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished (Washington, January 20, 1937) --

Adolf Hitler denounces umbrella-carrying types (Weimar, November 6, 1938) --

Lou Gehrig, the "Luckiest man on the face of the Earth." (Yankee Stadium, the Bronx, July 4, 1939) --

Winston Churchill, first speech as Prime Minister : "Blood, toil, tears and sweat" (London, May 13, 1940) --

Franklin Roosevelt's D-Day prayer : "They fight to end conquest" (Washington, June 6, 1944) --

Emperor Hirohito addresses his subjects : "We have resolved to pave the way to a grand peace" (Tokyo, August 15, 1945) --

Ho Chi Minh declares independence for Vietnam (Ba Dinh Square, September 2, 1945) --

Winston Churchill's Iron Curtain speech (Fulton, Missouri, March 5, 1946) --

Nikita Khrushchev's secret speech (Moscow, February 5, 1956) --

John Kennedy in Berlin : "Ich bein ein Berliner!" (Berlin, June 26, 1963) --

Barbara Jordan addresses the House Judiciary Committee : "Today I am an inquisitor" (Washington, July 24, 1974) --

Anwar Sadat addresses the Israeli Knesset : "A bold drive towards new horizons" (Jerusalem, November 20, 1977) --

Elie Weisel pleads with Ronald Reagan : "Your place is not there, Mr. President" (Washington, April 19, 1985) --

Ronald Reagan on the Challenger disaster : "The surly bonds of Earth" (Washington, January 28, 1986) --

Margaret Thatcher's sermon on the mound : "We must work and use our talents to create wealth" (Edinburgh, May 21, 1988) --

Nelson Mandela's inaugural address as President of South Africa : "Glory and hope to newborn liberty" (Pretoria, May 10, 1994) --

Barack Obama confronts race and religion : "A more perfect union" (March 18, 2008).