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On December 7, 1941, Japan launched a suprise attack on American at Pearl Harbor just before 8 a.m.
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At the Naval Base of Pearl Harbor, Honolulu, Hawaii, was where this story begins.
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This attack destroyed about 20 American naval vessels, about 8 large battleships, and more than 300 airplanes.
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More than 2000 American soldiers and sailors died in the attack. More than 1,000 of these soldiers and sailors were wounded.
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The day after the attack, president Franklin D. roosevelt asked Congress to declare war on Japan. Congress approved.
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On December 21, 1941, only 2 weeks after Pear Harbor, president Roosevelt summoned his armed forces commanders to the White House to demand a bombing raid on Japan.
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On August 6, 1945, an American B-29 bomber dropped the world’s first deployed atomic bomb over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. The explosion wiped out 90 percent of the city and immediately killed 80,000 people; tens of thousands more would later die of radiation exposure.
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Three days after the bomb on Hiroshima a second B-29 dropped another A-bomb on Nagasaki, killing an estimated 40,000 people.
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At noon on August 15, 1945 (Japanese time), Emperor Hirohito announced his country’s surrender in a radio broadcast.
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The formal surrender agreement was signed on September 2, aboard the U.S. battleship Missouri, anchored in Tokyo Bay.
