dec 7, 1941 - Attack on Pearl Harbor

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In May 1940, the United States had made Pearl Harbor the main base for its Pacific Fleet. As Americans didn’t expect the Japanese to attack first in Hawaii, some 4,000 miles away from the Japanese mainland, the base at Pearl Harbor was left relatively undefended, making it an easy target.
Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto spent months planning an attack that aimed to destroy the Pacific Fleet and destroy morale in the U.S. Navy, so that it would not be able to fight back as Japanese forces began to advance on targets across the South Pacific.
The attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service upon the United States against the naval base at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Territory of Hawaii, just before 08:00, on Sunday, December 7, 1941. The naval base had nineteen U.S. navy ships and eight U.S. naval battleships at Pearl Harbor, of which all were attacked and four sunk. More than 300 airplanes were destroyed. In total, 2,403 Americans died in the attack. 68 of these people were civilians.
Japan's attack drives the U.S. out of isolation and into WW2, a conflict that would end with Japan’s surrender after the devastating atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945.

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