In August 1980 in Gdansk, Poland, a young man jumped over a fence. His friends werecalling for him because the shipyard workers were organizing a protest against the communistregime, and they needed someone to lead their strike. Under his leadership… Read More
America was very powerful in the late eighteenth century and influential enough forpeople, worldwide to incorporate notions of the Declaration of Independence into their owncountries. Finalized on July 4th, 1776, the Declaration of Independence was and is an importantdocument. It… Read More
Since the Declaration of Independence was written 250 years ago, it has inspired nationalist movements and those working to extend the rights of man to all. From Simon Bolivar in Latin America to Gandhi in India, many have taken inspiration… Read More
Even a most perfunctory look at the history of warfare will tell you that throughout the course of civilization, from primitive man in the Bronze Age to the end of the twentieth century, and now in our twenty-first century, armed… Read More
In 1776, a group of American colonists declared that all men are created equal with inalienable rights and that governments are just only when they are by the consent of the governed. This declaration would be heard again in an… Read More
Quoted in countless stirring speeches and stuffed into the pockets of soldiers across centuries and countries, the Declaration of Independence has been a touchstone for liberty. The persuasive (and even poetic) lines have inspired freedom movements seeking equality, “certain unalienable rights,” and “the… Read More
In 1977, while Americans celebrated their Declaration’s bicentennial, Czechoslovakdissidents performed an ironic inversion of revolutionary legitimacy that exposed a fatalcontradiction in Marxist-Leninist governance. Charter 77, signed by 242 citizens includingauthor Václav Havel and philosopher Jan Patočka, revealed how Jefferson’s natural… Read More
Surrounded by drab-looking apartment blocks beneath an equally gloomy sky thatseemed to foretell endless limitations, my mother’s childhood in the Soviet bloc has forever beenetched in her memory. Born in Czechoslovakia in 1974, she spent her youth in a world… Read More
The Continental Congress labored late into the hot, sweltering night in Philadelphia for the birth of our new nation. The beauty of this document is that our Founding Fathers made it exceptionally clear that the purpose of the new nation’s government would… Read More
As the United States celebrates its semiquincentennial, VOC is marking the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence with a student essay contest to explore how America’s founding document inspired liberty movements and liberty champions across the globe. Each week,… Read More
