amplification

Last week, I found this really fascinating story about famous speeches given before modern amplification. It's an interesting - and kind of strange. I guess this clearly shows my "first-world", post-industrial-revolution tendencies, but it's hard for me to imagine giving those massive speeches to thousands of people with no amplification beyond the speaker's voice. I suppose it was nice that they didn't have to worry about finding a way to save on crown microphones or speakers or whatever, but... man, what a different world...