Xi Jinping just opened the 19th Communist Party Congress with a speech that addressed China’s global position and questions on independence for Taiwan and Hong Kong. He wasn’t brief, though: he spoke for an incredible three hours and 23 minutes.
His speech, however, doesn’t compare to V.K. Krishna Menon’s speech at the UN in 1957, which went on for nearly 8 hours.
Here’s a list of similarly long-winded political speeches that have carried weight over the last 50 years.
Stewart Stevenson: 23 hours and 51 minutes
Stewart Stevenson is a Scottish Member of Parliament who spoke for (ten minutes short of) an entire day at the International Suicide Prevention Week in 2004. While the official time recorded was 23 hours, there were failures of the public announcement system and the sound system in between, which caused both delays and repetitions.
Ted Cruz: 21 hours and 19 minutes
US Senator Ted Cruz once gave a marathon speech against Obamacare on the Senate floor in 2013. It was technically an extended speech because it was interrupted by his party members’ comments – but had it been an official filibuster, it would have been the fourth-longest one.
Wendy Davis: 10 hours and 45 minutes
Wendy Davis is a senator from Texas who had delivered an 11-hour filibuster in 2013 to delay the passage of an abortion rights bill. The bill (which eventually passed into the second session) put forward more restrictive abortion regulations in the state of Texas.
Hugo Chavez: 10 hours
Hugo Chavez, then the President of Venezuela, delivered a 10-hour speech at the National Assembly in Caracas in January 2012. The elections were to be held later that year.
V.K. Krishna Menon: 7 hours and 48 minutes
In January 1957, Menon delivered an impassioned speech on Pakistani propaganda in Kashmir at the UN. In the middle of what would turn out to be a nearly eight-hour long speech, Menon even collapsed and had to be hospitalised – only to return and continue his speech.
Fidel Castro: 7 hours and 10 minutes
At the IIIrd Communist Party Congress in Havana in 1986, Castro addressed his audience for just over seven hours.
Sir Ivan Lawrence: 4 hours and 23 minutes
A former Conservative Member of Parliament in the UK, Sir Ivan spoke for over four hours in 1985 on the addition of fluoride to the public water supply. He was against controlling the extent of fluoridation of the water.
Andrew Dismore: 3 hours and 37 minutes
In 2005, Andrew Dismore, a UK Labour MP, spoke for nearly four hours to block a bill which was trying to clarify the degree of force that a householder can use against anyone who breaks in or intrudes.
Xi Jinping: 3 hours and 23 minutes
Xi Jinping’s speech on Wednesday falls only at the end of this list. His three-and-a-half-hour long speech chronicled Chinese progress, and included promises to build a “beautiful China”.