Pearl Harbor: The attack on Pearl Harbor was the culmination of a decade of deteriorating relations between Japan and the United States over the status of China and the security of Southeast Asia. The breakdown began in 1931 when Japanese army extremists, in defiance of government policy, invaded and overran the northern-most Chinese province of Manchuria. Japan ignored American protests, and in the summer of 1937 launched a full-scale attack on the rest of China. Although alarmed by this action, neither the United States nor any other nation with interests in the Far East was willing to use military force to halt Japanese expansion. Continue reading.
Additional websites for further investigation:
A date that will live in infamy - Speech by Franklin Roosevelt informing the U.S. of the attack.
Pearl Harbor - a Britannica Encyclopedia article
D - Day: U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill were responsible for leading their nations to victory and jointly planned strategies for the cooperation and eventual success of the Allied armed forces. Continue reading.
Additional websites for further investigation:
D-Day - a Britannica Encyclopedia article
Utah Beach, France. Museum of Utah Beach - the first beach that the Allies landed on in France.
The following video clip is 20 minutes long. It is the original newsreel from the government highlighting the preparation of the Allied Forces prior to D-Day:
Manhattan Project: In the early morning hours of August 6, 1945, a B-29 bomber named Enola Gay took off from the island of Tinian and headed north by northwest toward Japan. The bomber’s
primary target was the city of Hiroshima, located on the deltas of southwestern Honshu
Island facing the Inland Sea. Hiroshima had a civilian population of almost 300,000 and was an important military center, containing about 43,000 soldiers. Continue reading.
Additional websites for further investigation:
The Manhattan Project: the race to build the atomic bomb
Statement by the President announcing the dropping of the A-Bomb on Hiroshima
Energy.gov article on the Manhattan Project
Manhattan Project - a Britannica Encyclopedia article