This Week in History: International
Within the next few weeks, I’ll be working with several international clients. No, I won’t be traveling to their various countries (although sometimes I do, and I always enjoy it). In this case, they’re all speaking at a major convention in the United States, and I’ll be coaching them during on-site rehearsals.
After running my own speechwriting business for 25 years, I’m keenly aware of the global nature of speechwriting. I encourage all professional speechwriters to build a worldwide portfolio.
Here are some details for the week of December 27 through January 2:
1643 Birthday of Sir Isaac Newton (English physicist, mathematician and philosopher): “I do not know what I may appear to the world. But, to myself, I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than the ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.”
1822 Birthday of Louis Pasteur (France). Thank him each time you reach for a bottle of pasteurized milk.
1845 Texas joined the United States - as the 28th state.
1856 Birthday of Woodrow Wilson (United States), recognized for his efforts to bring the US into the League of Nations.
1865 Birthday of Rudyard Kipling (India, in the era of the British Empire).
1880 Birthday of George Marshall (United States) … the US Army’s Chief of Staff during World War II, and author of the Marshall Plan.
1940 US President Franklin D. Roosevelt made a speech about the dangers of appeasement: “No man can tame a tiger into a kitten by stroking it.”