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The Finest Hour

This photograph shows Sir Winston Churchill, Prime Minister of Great Britain. It was on this day, June 18, in the year 1940 that Churchill gave his famous "Finest Hour" speech. An excerpt from the speech is presented below:

"The Battle of France is over. The Battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilization. Upon it depends our own British life, and the long continuity of our institutions and our Empire. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this Island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be freed and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, 'This was their finest hour.' "

Sometimes I worry that politicians of today are just not up for the task at hand. We need men like Churchill and Truman.