The Four Freedoms

In his State of the Union address on January 6, 1941 — eleven months before Pearl Harbor — Franklin Roosevelt argued that the United States could not stay neutral in a world menaced by dictatorship. He defined four freedoms worth defending everywhere: of speech and of worship, and from want and from fear.

The speech made the moral case for aiding the Allies and helped move a reluctant nation toward war. The Four Freedoms later shaped the United Nations' founding ideals and were immortalized in Norman Rockwell's paintings.