On December 7, 1941 — which President Franklin D. Roosevelt would memorably name “a date which will live in infamy” on the following day — hundreds of Japanese warplanes made a…
Category: Historical quotes
“The Silent Majority” — from Nixon to Futurama
On November 3, 1969, President Richard M. Nixon (1913–1994) made a televised address to the nation about the war in Vietnam that popularized one of the most famous political phrases of the 20th century: “the silent majority.”
“Too cheap to meter” – the infamous nuclear power phrase…
In the annals of the long, still-ongoing debate over nuclear power, the most infamous words are undoubtedly “too cheap to meter.” The origin of this phrase is a speech given…
Mitt Romney’s infamous “47 percent” quote
On May 17, 2012, Republican presidential candidate, Senator Mitt Romney (R-Utah), said something that was later cited as one of the factors that caused him to lose the election…
“The shot heard round the world”
The famous phrase “The shot heard round the world” was coined by American essayist, lecturer and poet Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) in 1837. It’s the last line in the first…
“Power without responsibility – the prerogative of the harlot throughout the ages.”
In the decades before World War II, Stanley Baldwin was one of the most powerful politicians in the United Kingdom. He was the leader of Britain’s Conservative Party from 1923…
March 4th: a good day for famous presidential quotes – until 1933…
The date for the United States presidential inauguration was not specified in the original U.S. Constitution. In 1788, the Continental Congress set Inauguration Day as March 4. Then, in 1933,…
Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address – and Lord Buckley’s “hip translation” . . .
On November 19, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln gave a brief speech in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania at the dedication of a cemetery for the Union soldiers who had died in that bloody…