Seventy years ago, on December 7, 1941, a United States naval base called Pearl Harbor on the Pacific island of Hawaii was attacked by the military forces of Japan. It was a surprise attack on a Sunday morning that left 2,402 Americans dead and nearly 1,300 more injured. It would also result in the United States’ (as well as Canada’s) immediate entry into World War II, the bloodiest conflict the world has ever seen. The U.S. had never seen anything like the attack on Pearl Harbor before, and for a generation of Americans it was a life-changing catastrophe that they would never forget.
As the attack on Pearl Harbor fades into the distance past, and in the wake of 9/11–the current generation’s own, shocking, catastrophe–it is easy to lose sight of just how seminal and tragic the attack was, not to mention how much the attack potentially changed the course of history.
Seventy years ago the United States, and indeed much of the world, was changed by the events that occurred at that Hawaiian naval base on that sleepy Sunday morning. As the event fades further into the recesses of history it is more important than ever for the tragedy of Pearl Harbor not to get lost for the generations to come.