discussion History

For this week's main post I will be discussing the bombing of Pearl Harbor in Hawaii which occurred on December 7th, 1941. This attack comprised of a surprise military strike by Japanese air forces which resulted in the loss of many American naval forces as well as 2,335 American lives. This was a very important event in the history of the United States because it is essentially what sparked the country's joining in World War II. If it weren't for this tragic event, the United States may have never joined the war and the world could be very different today. The purpose of studying the history of this event is to learn from the event. Much of history is told to be able to avoid the same mistakes that were once done that had grave consequences. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States focused solely on the Japanese people in Japan as well as in the country and made sure that they realized that what they had done was a very big mistake. This was observed further down the line with the nuking of Hiroshima and Nagasaki near the end of the war. Some of the sources that I would choose to use as evidence would be personal anecdotes from Japanese Americans living in the United States after the bombing which would show just how horrible and stressful their lives were for many years while the war was going on. After the bombing, the United States had a completely negative view of the Japanese people even though they were living in the country as American citizens and had never been convicted of anything wrong. These negative views fueled other historical events like the passing of the executive order 9066 which sent any person of Japanese ancestry living in America to instructional camps where they would live out the rest of the war. These sources of evidence would be very useful in determining the consequences that the bombing on Pearl Harbor had on the Japanese people as well as the American people.