Article 1 (Oct 2018): 155th anniversary of the Gettysburg Address, Nov. 19, 1863 and Veteran's Day, Nov. 11, 2018

No other tribute to veterans ever written more defines the American experience than the Gettysburg address.  Abraham Lincoln, speaking on the grounds of the Civil War Battlefield at Gettysburg, noted humbly and sadly that "the world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here."
              
But he was incorrect. The world did take note and long remembered.  Packed into the two-minute, 271-word speech are some of the most iconic phrases and sentiments in American history.  The event, in November 1863, was to consecrate a burial ground for some of the soldiers who died there.

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war.  We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live.  It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate -- we cannot consecrate -- we cannot hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract.  The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.  It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.  It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.