The Attack on Pearl Harbor

World War II, or the Second World War, was a global military conflict that took place from 1939 thru 1945. It was the largest and deadliest war in history. The causes for this war were the rise of nationalism, the rise of militarism, and the presence of unresolved territorial issues.
The Treaty of Versailles in 1919 was the peace treaty which officially ended World War I between the Allied and Associated Powers and Germany. Germany’s resentment of the Treaty of Versailles fueled the rise to power of Adolf Hitler’s National Socialist German Workers Party, commonly known as the Nazi Party. With the rise of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party came the emergence of their program, called “racial hygiene”, which removed the sick, the insane, the mentally retarded, the disable, gypsies, homosexuals, Jews, and other ethnicities from German society. Freemasons, Communists, trade unionists, Catholic and Protestant clergy, and Jehovah’s Witnesses were also persecuted and killed. These discriminatory policies culminated in the Holocaust.
In the 1930’s Japan was ruled by a militarist government who wanted Japan to become a world power. In 1937 Japan invaded China to augment its meager stock of time, who was Franklin Delano Roosevelt, authorized loan to China, providing secret United States also established increasingly broad embargoes of raw materials against withdrawing from China. Japan chose to continue with its plans for the Greater East Asia War in the Pacific, better known as the Pacific War of World War II.
In July 1941, after Japan occupied the remainder of Indo-China president Franklin Delano Roosevelt cut off the sales of oil from the United States, Britain and the Netherlands that fueled the Japanese war machine. Roosevelt continued negotiations with the Japanese government in the hope of avoiding war.
On Sunday December 7th, 1941 the Japanese, under the command of Admiral Yamamoto Isoroku, made a surprise attack on Per Harbor, Oahu, Hawaii, hoping that it would make the Americans petition for peace, leaving the Pacific open for Japanese expansion.
At 7:53 a.m., the first Japanese assault wave, commenced the attack with flight commander, Mitsuo Fuchida. The first attack wave targeted airfields and battleships. The second wave targeted other ships and shipyard facilities. The air raid lasted until 9:45 a.m.. Eight battleships were damaged, and five sunk. Three light cruisers, three destroyers and three smaller vessels were lost along with 188 aircraft. The Japanese lost 27 planes and five midget submarines which attempted to penetrate the inner harbor and launch torpedoes. The prime targets, the three U.S. Pacific Fleet aircraft carriers, Lexington, Enterprise and Saratoga, escaped damage from the attack because they were not in the port.
On Monday, December 8th, 1941, the United States and Britain declared war on Japan with President Roosevelt calling December 7, “a date which will live in infamy…”. On Thursday, December 11th Germany and Italy declared war on the United States. The European and Southeast Asian wars now became a global conflict with the Axis powers; Japan, Germany and Italy, united against America, Britain, France, and their Allies.
The news of the “sneak attack” on Pearl Harbor, by the Japanese, was broadcasted to the American public via radio bulletins, with many popular Sunday afternoon entertainment programs being interrupted. This news sent a shockwave across the nation and resulting in a tremendous entry of young volunteers into the United States armed forces.. The attack also united the nation behind the President and effectively ended isolationist sentiment in the country.