Trying to come up with a list of great speeches in American history is a difficult assignment, as our Presidents and other public figures have given us great riches in their oratory, but here the author will attempt to give a list of 15 speeches that impacted American history, and have stood the test of time! There is no ranking order possible, so they will be listed chronologically.
Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address 1863
Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address 1865
Woodrow Wilson’s 14 Points Address 1918
Franklin D. Roosevelt’s First Inaugural Address 1933
Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms Speech, State of the Union Address, 1941
John F. Kennedy’s Inaugural Address 1961
John F. Kennedy’s Berlin Speech 1963
John F. Kennedy’s Civil Rights Speech 1963
Martin Luther King, Jr’s I Have A Dream Speech 1963
Robert Kennedy’s Speech After Martin Luther King, Jr. Assassination 1968
Ronald Reagan Challenger Disaster Speech 1986
Ronald Reagan Berlin Wall Speech 1987
Bill Clinton Oklahoma City Speech 1995
Barack Obama Speech at Democratic National Convention 2004
Barack Obama’s Theodore Roosevelt Speech in Osawatomie, Kansas 2011
Debate and discussion on this is welcome!