The town of Gettysburg, in the south of Pennsylvania, saw one of the decisive battles of the Civil War, as Robert E. Lee’s Confederate army was turned back by Union Major General George Gordon Meade, the last time a Confederate army would reach the North. It was also one of the bloodiest, with over 7,000 men killed on the Union side. A great cemetery went up to give the fallen a proper resting place and President Abraham Lincoln was invited to speak at the site.

On this day, November 19, in 1863, President Lincoln went before a crowd of 15,000 people and gave his short – but powerful – address. Lincoln began with invoking the American founders, in a tradition that dates back to the Greeks, before talking of “unfinished business” and “the great task ahead.” He also reaffirmed the values they were fighting for, a “government of the people, by the people, for the people.”

Lincoln’s address lasted two minutes, compared with a two-hour tour de force from the preceding orator Edward Everett. The audience reaction was subdued, and Lincoln judged it to be a failure. But even the great speaker Everett was moved by Lincoln’s words. The speech itself is now considered one of the finest ever given in the English language.