The Areopagitica on this Day in History

This day in history: John Milton published his Areopagitica on this day in 1644. The Areopagitica is perhaps the earliest and one of the greatest manifestos in defense of free speech ever introduced. He wrote: “Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties.”

The US Supreme Court cited it as an authority on the inherent value of false statements in the landmark case New York Times v. Sullivan:

"Even a false statement may be deemed to make a valuable contribution to public debate, since it brings about 'the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.'” Mill, On Liberty (Oxford: Blackwell, 1947), p. 15; see also Milton, Areopagitica, in Prose Works (New Haven, CT: Yale, 1959), vol. 2, p. 561.

See also: Free Speech Leads to Tolerance and Prosperity
https://thebookshelf2015.blogspot.com/2017/12/free-speech-leads-to-tolerance-and.html

Free Speech IS the Speech You Hate - Quotations on Freedom of Expression
https://thebookshelf2015.blogspot.com/2017/04/free-speech-is-speech-you-hate.html

Your Free Speech Is More Important Than My Feelings
https://thebookshelf2015.blogspot.com/2018/04/your-free-speech-is-more-important-than.html

Read the Areopagitica
http://files.libertyfund.org/files/103/1224_Bk.pdf
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/608

Listen to the Areopagitica
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgTiHr-bXhI