Eyewitness to World War II (Capstone)

The United States entered World War II after a surprise attack by the Japanese on December 7, 1941. U.S. officials feared that Japanese Americans would betray their country and help Japan. Nearly 120,000 Japanese Americans were taken from their homes and moved into relocation centers, which some viewed as concentration camps. The internees, backed by many other Americans, believed that their fundamental rights as U.S. citizens had been denied. Years later the government apologized for its unjust actions.

Nearly 8,000 Jewish-owned businesses, schools, hospitals, and homes were destroyed during one night of brutality in November 1938. German Nazis and their supporters took to the streets of Germany and Austria bent on destruction. They burned hundreds of synagogues to the ground, killed more than 100 Jews, and sent 30,000 more to concentration camps. Kristallnacht, "the night of broken glass," would mark the beginning of the Holocaust.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt called December 7, 1941, "a date which will live in infamy." Early that morning hundreds of Japanese fighter planes unexpectedly attacked the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. More than 2,000 Americans were killed and the battleships of the Pacific Fleet lay in ruins. The brutal attack launched the United States into war, a conflict that engulfed the world.

Hoping to finally end World War II, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, on August 6, 1945. Three days later, the U.S. dropped another massive bomb on Nagasaki, Japan. The result was total devastation. Within seconds of the blasts, more than 120,000 men, women and children died. Thousands more would die from radiation sickness in the months to come. The war was over but the ongoing fear of nuclear destruction had begun.