It Was Said

In the West, Russian dictator Vladimir Putin is always seen as one of two things: KGB spy or judo master. But to anyone who’s ever lived in the Soviet Union, Putin is something else entirely: a street kid. Join journalist Julia Ioffe as she explores how Putin’s childhood taught him lessons that shape his thinking and actions to this day.

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Eleanor Roosevelt champions the creation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a foundational document proclaiming that “all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.” 

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Franklin D. Roosevelt asks Congress for a declaration of war against Japan following the attack on Pearl Harbor – a date, he says, which will live in infamy.

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Frederick Douglass delivers a searing speech on the Fourth of July, summoning the nation to remedy the contradiction between slavery and the founding principles of the United States. 

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Republican Senator Margaret Chase Smith breaks with partisan orthodoxy to take a stand against the demagoguery of Joseph McCarthy.

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Ronald Reagan commemorates the 40th anniversary of D-day. Linking past and present, he harks back to the landing in Normandy to revive a sense of American greatness and strength. 

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Nelson Mandela stands trial for challenging the apartheid regime in South Africa. Speaking from the defendant’s dock at Pretoria, he defiantly declares that he is prepared to die to achieve a democratic and free society. 

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Margaret Thatcher resolves not to change course despite mounting criticism of her economic policy in Britain. The lady's not for turning, she said.  

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Theodore Roosevelt, speaking at the Sorbonne in Paris, outlines the vital role and responsibility of the ordinary citizen in a republic.  

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John F. Kennedy delivers a historic speech at Rice University on his daring and uncertain mission to land a man on the moon before the end of the decade. 

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Confronted with the impending threat of Nazi invasion, Winston Churchill outlines the stakes of the war and rallies the British people to fight on against seemingly insurmountable odds. 

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Welcome to Season Two of It Was Said, a documentary podcast series that looks back on 10 of the most powerful, impactful and timeless speeches in American history. Written and narrated by Pulitzer Prize-winning and best-selling author-historian, Jon Meacham, created, directed and produced by C13Originals Studios, in association with HISTORY Channel.

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Ep 10: On a bright and snowy morning a young president summons a nation and a generation to the work of history with his enduring inaugural address.

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Ep 9: A twenty three year old John Lewis, speaking at the March On Washington, calls a nation to moral account. He didn’t want to be patient, he said. He wanted freedom now.  

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Ep 8: In the tradition of Eleanor Roosevelt, Hillary Rodham Clinton travels to Beijing to argue that women’s rights are human rights, setting new global priorities. 

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Ep 7: A daughter of the segregated south, Barbara Jordan, keynotes the Democratic National Convention of 1976. It was America’s bicentennial, and Jordan was a voice born in one nation speaking to the hopes of a better nation to come.

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Ep 6: A demagogic politician, exaggerated claims, an insatiable thirst for attention and controversy, and a national climate of fear and anxiety. How Edward R. Murrow took on Senator Joseph McCarthy.  

Special thanks to The Department of Special Collections and University Archives, Marquette University Libraries

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Ep 5: Ronald Reagan brings his long American odyssey to a close in his presidential farewell address, an evocation of America as a shining city on a hill. A nation that builds not walls but bridges.

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Ep 4: Meghan McCain delivers a provocative eulogy for her father, the war hero and senator, John McCain, at Washington National Cathedral. It was a speech at once elegiac and resonant in the age of Trump.

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Ep 3: Barack Obama goes to Charleston, South Carolina in the wake of a white supremacist’s massacre of innocents at Emanuel AME Church. In word and in song the 44th President contemplates tragedy and grace.

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