Take the Podium for This Quiz on Presidential Speeches

On June 6, 1984, President Ronald Reagan stood on the north coast of France to deliver a speech honoring the soldiers who had lost their lives at that very spot 40 years earlier on D-Day. “Democracy is worth dying for, because it’s the most deeply honorable form of government ever devised by man,” Reagan said.

“Iffy” was first popularized by Franklin D. Roosevelt, “mammoth” by Thomas Jefferson, and “sugarcoat” by Lincoln. “Muckraker” was all Theodore Roosevelt. In a 1906 speech, Roosevelt referred to journalists and activists who exposed corruption as “muckrakers.” He credited their importance while also warning against sensationalizing issues in a way that would make citizens cynical.

The Soviet Union was the first to launch a satellite (1957), and the first to send a human being into space (1961). So during a September 1962 speech at Rice University, near NASA’s Houston-based Space Center, President John F. Kennedy declared that the United States intended on winning the space race to put a man on the moon. “We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard,” the President said.

In 1953, as tensions with the Soviet Union spiked, Dwight D. Eisenhower stressed the importance of using nuclear power for peace instead of war in a speech to the United Nations. “The United States knows that if the fearful trend of atomic military buildup can be reversed, this greatest of destructive forces can be developed into a great boon, for the benefit of all mankind,” Eisenhower said.

First used in his 1988 speech accepting the Republican nomination for President, “a thousand points of light” was how then-Vice President George Bush envisioned an America powered by volunteers, as opposed to the government. “This is America: The Knights of Columbus, the Grange, Hadassah … a brilliant diversity spread like stars, like a thousand points of light in a broad and peaceful sky,” Bush said.

On January 8, 1918, President Woodrow Wilson delivered an address before a joint meeting of Congress, during which he outlined his vision for stable peace in Europe. In his speech, he introduced 14 points that would serve as guidelines in the postwar world. Those points included freedom of the seas and free trade, the dismantling of European empires, and the establishment of the League of Nations.

Tensions between Chile and the U.S. had been rising for a while, but on October 16, 1891, things came to a head. A brawl broke out between American sailors and Chilean nationals in Valparaiso, Chile, and two Americans were killed. President Benjamin Harrison gave a speech denouncing the attack and calling for war. When Chile was given an ultimatum to prevent the conflict, the South American nation backed down and paid an indemnity of $75,000.

William Henry Harrison's only speech as President was his inaugural address. The 2-hour, 8,000 word rant was delivered on a freezing, wet winter day, yet Harrison refused to wear an overcoat, hat or gloves in order to prove his strength. Unfortunately, that may have cost him his life. Harrison became ill shortly following the speech and died after only 32 days in office, the shortest tenure in presidential history.

In FDR's 1941 State of the Union Address, the President made the case for the U.S. to continue aiding Great Britain economically in World War II. Roosevelt made the case that America was assisting in the fight for four universal freedoms that all people possessed. As laid out by Roosevelt, those four freedoms are freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear.

In 1952, Dwight Eisenhower's Vice President Richard Nixon was accused of taking an $18,000 contribution and using it for personal expenses. In a speech, he denied the claim, but he did admit that his family dog, Checkers, had been a political gift. Pulling on the heartstrings of America, Nixon said, "the kids, like all kids, loved the dog, and I just want to say this, right now, that regardless of what they say about it, we are going to keep it."

President Calvin Coolidge's 1923 State of the Union Address was carried on the radio nationwide, the first President ever to take such advantage of the technology. "The New York Times" anticipated the address by saying, "The voice of President Coolidge, addressing Congress tomorrow, will be carried over a greater portion of the United States and will be heard by more people than the voice of any man in history.”

During his special message to Congress on the foreign policy crisis, President James Madison asked Congress to declare war on Great Britain. Madison said that due to Britain's illegal blockades, their ongoing support of Indian warfare in the northwest, and the forced recruitment of U.S. sailors into the Royal Navy, the U.S. was already at war and needed a formal declaration, which Congress soon granted.

In 1910, a year after his presidency ended, Theodore Roosevelt gave a speech in Paris formerly known as "Citizenship in a Republic.'' It is better known today, though, as "The Man in the Arena'' from the passage which goes, "It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles ... The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena."

In 1796, George Washington stepped down from the presidency after two terms. In announcing his departure, Washington gave a farewell address to "friends and citizens," which was actually not a speech, but a letter published in newspapers nationwide. In the remarks, Washington cautioned the country against political parties and partisan factionalism — a warning which politicians promptly ignored.

One week after the events of Selma, Alabama's "Bloody Sunday" in 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson gave an address in the chamber of the House of Representatives that was officially titled "The American Promise" but became better known for its most famous line "we shall overcome." In the speech, Johnson declares, "These enemies — poverty, disease, and ignorance: we shall overcome."

Between 1933 and 1944, President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave a series of 31 evening radio addresses that were referred to as his "Fireside Chats." The first one, which was delivered just eight days after his inauguration, was on the subject of banking and some of the nation's largest bank failures. His casual, explanatory speech was heard by more than 60 million Americans.

With impeachment proceedings underway and the loss of his party's support following the Watergate scandal, Richard Nixon announced his intention to resign the office of the presidency on August 8, 1974. In his solemn address, Nixon said, "By taking this action, I hope that I will have hastened the start of the process of healing which is so desperately needed in America."

Abraham Lincoln began his 1863 speech with the line "Four score and seven years ago." A score is a unit of measure equal to 20 years, so Lincoln began by referencing a time 87 years ago — in this case, 1776, when the Declaration of Independence was signed.

When Franklin Delano Roosevelt was sworn in on March 4, 1933, the country was in the midst of the Great Depression. In his inaugural address, FDR projected optimism, saying, "Let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself — nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance."

On June 26, 1963, JFK was welcomed to West Berlin by more than 1 million of its residents. In front of the Berlin Wall, he delivered an impassioned speech denouncing communism, proudly stating, “Ich bin ein Berliner” (“I am a Berliner”). Kennedy’s words were in reference to the Roman philosopher Marcus Cicero, who once famously said, “I am a Roman citizen.”

On December 7, 1941, tragedy struck the United States when Japanese forces attacked Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. The next day, President Franklin D. Roosevelt spoke before Congress, beginning his speech with this now famous line: “Yesterday, December 7, 1941, a date which will live in infamy…” In the speech’s initial draft, the phrase included the words “world history” in lieu of “infamy.”

In 1987, at a celebration for the city of Berlin's 750th birthday, Ronald Reagan stood in front of the Brandenburg Gate, which was blocked by the Berlin Wall, and challenged the leader of the Soviet Union. He declared, "General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization, come here to this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!"