Disneyland's 46th Birthday and Lincoln Grand Opening, Ceremony 4

Disneyland's 46th Birthday and Lincoln Grand Opening
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Cynthia Harriss: Thank you, Marty. Walt Disney was never shy about expressing his deep love for his country. He used to say if you looked deep into his eyes you could see a waving American flag. He was especially moved by the ideals of our 16th president. And you’ll see inside there’s a photograph of a young Walt Disney standing there in a stovepipe hat and a handmade beard. On Abraham Lincoln’s birthday Walt Disney dressed accordingly and he proudly delivered the Gettysburg Address to his fifth grade class. So today, in honor of both Walt Disney and Abraham Lincoln, we welcome a very special guest who will officially rededicate the new Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln by delivering President Lincoln’s historic Gettysburg Address which was first presented to his beloved nation on November 19, 1863.

Video: Cynthia Harriss introduced Martin Landau (1 minute, 8 seconds)
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Ladies and Gentlemen, please welcome the Academy Award winner Martin Landau.

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Cynthia Harriss, Martin Landau and Marty Sklar
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The band plays Battle Hymn of the Republic as Landau approaches the podium. The song continues while Landau speaks:

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Academy-Award winning actor Martin Landau
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Video: Martin Landau delivers the Gettysburg Address (3 minutes, 12 seconds)
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Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth upon 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 here on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of it 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 can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work, which they have thus far so nobly carried on. 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 here gave the last full measure of devotion--that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation shall have a new birth of freedom, and that this government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.

As the speech ends the music swells and white doves are released.

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White doves release as the Battle Hymn of the Republic swells
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Cynthia Harriss: Thank you very much, Mr. Landau. And thank you Marty very much for being a part of this celebration. And I want to thank all of you for joining us today on Disneyland’s 46th birthday. I’d like to invite all of you to join us for the inaugural day of our newest attraction, Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln and I hope you have a wonderful day today here on Disneyland’s 46th birthday. Thank you.

Video: Cynthia Harriss closes the ceremony (43 seconds)
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Cynthia Harris, Martin Landau and Marty Sklar
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