Category Archives: History of Public Speaking

Celebrating Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream”

Posted on 28/08/2016 by John Zimmer

On 28 August 1963, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered one of the most famous speeches in history, I Have a Dream. I write this post on the 53rd anniversary of that … Continue reading →

Posted in History of Public Speaking, Motivation | Tagged I have a dream, Martin Luther King | Leave a comment

Great Souvenir (and Excuse) from a Presidential Speech

Posted on 05/06/2012 by John Zimmer

Here’s a great story. Eleven-year-old Tyler Sullivan from Minnesota skipped school last week to go with his father to see President Obama deliver a speech at a local plant. After the speech, Tyler met Obama. The President realized that Tyler was … Continue reading →

Posted in History of Public Speaking, Humour | Tagged Barack Obama, Humour, Minnesota, public speaking, Tyler Sullivan | Leave a comment

The Gettysburg Address: An Analysis

Posted on 19/11/2010 by John Zimmer

On 19 November, we commemorate the anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address in 1863. In one of the first posts on this blog, I compared Lincoln’s two-minute address with the two-hour oration by Edward Everett on the same occasion. Today the … Continue reading →

Posted in Analysis of a Speech, Delivery, History of Public Speaking | Tagged Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Dlugan, Battle of Gettysburg, Gettysburg Address, History, Nancy Duarte, Nick Morgan, President, United States | 114 Comments

“The Few”

Posted on 26/08/2010 by John Zimmer

Last week marked the 70th anniversary of one of the most famous speeches in modern history. On 20 August 1940, Winston Churchill addressed the British House of Commons and delivered his epic speech to honour “The Few” — the Allied … Continue reading →

Posted in History of Public Speaking | Tagged Battle of Britain, History, London, Luftwaffe, Nazi Germany, Never was so much owed by so many to so few, Royal Air Force, Winston Churchill, World War II | 7 Comments

Some Chilling Public Speaking History

Posted on 12/05/2010 by John Zimmer

Here is a rather chilling passage from The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. It captures in a few short paragraphs the sense of terror that pervaded the Soviet Union under Stalin. Nowadays, we often hear people talk about being “bored to … Continue reading →