1
00:00:00,080 --> 00:00:03,480
Speaker 1: Hey, history fans, here's a rerun for today, brought to

2
00:00:03,480 --> 00:00:07,440
Speaker 1: you by Tracy V. Wilson. Welcome to this Day in

3
00:00:07,520 --> 00:00:10,360
Speaker 1: History Class from how Stuff Works dot Com and from

4
00:00:10,360 --> 00:00:12,600
Speaker 1: the desk of Stuff you Missed in History Class. It's

5
00:00:12,640 --> 00:00:14,880
Speaker 1: the show where we explore the past one day at

6
00:00:14,880 --> 00:00:17,079
Speaker 1: a time with a quick look at what happened today

7
00:00:17,079 --> 00:00:25,040
Speaker 1: in history. Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy V. Wilson,

8
00:00:25,040 --> 00:00:29,040
Speaker 1: and it's December seven. Japan bombed the U. S. Naval

9
00:00:29,040 --> 00:00:33,120
Speaker 1: base at Pearl Harbor on this day in This is

10
00:00:33,159 --> 00:00:36,239
Speaker 1: what drew the United States into World War Two, but

11
00:00:36,440 --> 00:00:39,960
Speaker 1: its origins are from well well before World War Two

12
00:00:40,080 --> 00:00:43,839
Speaker 1: began in Europe. We have to start with Japan. Japan

13
00:00:44,240 --> 00:00:47,199
Speaker 1: is a tiny island nation. It just doesn't have a

14
00:00:47,240 --> 00:00:50,920
Speaker 1: lot of land or natural resources. So in the early

15
00:00:51,000 --> 00:00:55,400
Speaker 1: twentieth century, Japan became really increasingly aggressive toward its neighbors

16
00:00:55,800 --> 00:00:58,800
Speaker 1: in an attempt to get access to the resources that

17
00:00:58,880 --> 00:01:02,639
Speaker 1: those neighbors have had. This goal was to build a

18
00:01:02,720 --> 00:01:07,520
Speaker 1: massive and very wealthy empire that spanned the Pacific and Asia,

19
00:01:08,160 --> 00:01:10,920
Speaker 1: and at first a lot of this was focused on China.

20
00:01:11,440 --> 00:01:15,800
Speaker 1: Active warfare between China and Japan began in nineteen thirty seven,

21
00:01:15,880 --> 00:01:21,320
Speaker 1: but that followed years of Japanese aggression against China, including

22
00:01:21,319 --> 00:01:25,240
Speaker 1: the occupation of Manchuria six years before. And this was

23
00:01:25,280 --> 00:01:28,360
Speaker 1: not just a matter of an international dispute or of

24
00:01:28,480 --> 00:01:33,399
Speaker 1: one nation trying to colonize another. China's treatment at the

25
00:01:33,480 --> 00:01:37,920
Speaker 1: hands of the Japanese Imperial Army was absolutely brutal and destructive.

26
00:01:38,600 --> 00:01:41,640
Speaker 1: It had led for calls for the United States to

27
00:01:41,720 --> 00:01:45,320
Speaker 1: intervene long before the United States became part of any

28
00:01:45,319 --> 00:01:48,800
Speaker 1: of this. So the United States was trying not to

29
00:01:48,840 --> 00:01:51,600
Speaker 1: get involved in the nineteen thirties. After World War One,

30
00:01:51,760 --> 00:01:54,960
Speaker 1: there was a lot of isolationism in the United States,

31
00:01:55,480 --> 00:01:59,480
Speaker 1: but even so, afterwards spread of war crimes and to

32
00:01:59,600 --> 00:02:03,040
Speaker 1: tross cities being committed by Japan and Asia, there were

33
00:02:03,040 --> 00:02:05,440
Speaker 1: more and more calls for the United States to do something.

34
00:02:06,640 --> 00:02:10,360
Speaker 1: Rather than taking direct military action, the United States started

35
00:02:10,400 --> 00:02:14,320
Speaker 1: implementing sanctions against Japan. This included a trade embargo that

36
00:02:14,360 --> 00:02:17,400
Speaker 1: cut off most of Japan's access to things like oil,

37
00:02:17,919 --> 00:02:23,000
Speaker 1: which Japan needed especially in wartime. By December of one

38
00:02:23,000 --> 00:02:25,040
Speaker 1: after that these sanctions had been in place for a while.

39
00:02:25,200 --> 00:02:28,200
Speaker 1: The United States Naval Fleet was stationed at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii,

40
00:02:29,000 --> 00:02:32,040
Speaker 1: and the general perception was this was a pretty safe

41
00:02:32,120 --> 00:02:34,840
Speaker 1: place for the fleet to be. It was thousands of

42
00:02:34,880 --> 00:02:37,360
Speaker 1: miles from the continent of the United States and from Japan.

43
00:02:38,160 --> 00:02:41,960
Speaker 1: So while the United States was expecting some kind of attack,

44
00:02:42,200 --> 00:02:45,480
Speaker 1: the relations with Japan had reached that point, it definitely

45
00:02:45,560 --> 00:02:48,640
Speaker 1: wasn't expecting that attack to happen at Pearl Harbor, so

46
00:02:48,680 --> 00:02:52,320
Speaker 1: the naval base there was relatively undefended. Even though the

47
00:02:52,320 --> 00:02:55,200
Speaker 1: war seemed increasingly likely, the military hadn't taken all that

48
00:02:55,240 --> 00:02:58,000
Speaker 1: many steps to fortify the base or to expand their

49
00:02:58,040 --> 00:03:03,079
Speaker 1: reconnaissance activities around Hawaii. All this meant that when the

50
00:03:03,120 --> 00:03:06,280
Speaker 1: attack did happen at about eight am on December seven,

51
00:03:06,440 --> 00:03:09,200
Speaker 1: that came as a total surprise, and the results were

52
00:03:09,200 --> 00:03:13,920
Speaker 1: absolutely devastating, and less than two hours, every battleship in

53
00:03:13,919 --> 00:03:17,919
Speaker 1: Pearl Harbor was significantly damaged. Two of them were completely lost.

54
00:03:18,480 --> 00:03:21,720
Speaker 1: More than three hundred airplanes were damaged or destroyed, and

55
00:03:21,760 --> 00:03:25,080
Speaker 1: more than two hundred people were killed. More than a

56
00:03:25,160 --> 00:03:29,880
Speaker 1: thousand were wounded, and this included soldiers, sailors, and civilians.

57
00:03:31,120 --> 00:03:35,080
Speaker 1: Although this was catastrophic and it's often remembered as a

58
00:03:35,080 --> 00:03:38,600
Speaker 1: total loss for the United States Naval fleet. In reality,

59
00:03:39,040 --> 00:03:42,760
Speaker 1: the United States naval strategy had evolved beyond the use

60
00:03:42,800 --> 00:03:45,920
Speaker 1: of battleships. The battleships were the ships that were mostly

61
00:03:45,960 --> 00:03:48,800
Speaker 1: in the harbor at Pearl Harbor. Instead, by this point,

62
00:03:48,880 --> 00:03:53,360
Speaker 1: the United States was making extensive use of aircraft carriers,

63
00:03:53,400 --> 00:03:56,160
Speaker 1: and the aircraft carrier fleet was not in Pearl Harbor

64
00:03:56,280 --> 00:03:59,600
Speaker 1: that day. In fact, there were no aircraft carriers in

65
00:03:59,600 --> 00:04:02,800
Speaker 1: Pearl Harbor on December seven, so the aircraft carriers that

66
00:04:02,840 --> 00:04:06,200
Speaker 1: at that point were so central to military strategy were

67
00:04:06,200 --> 00:04:09,840
Speaker 1: not affected by the bombing. At this point, though, the

68
00:04:09,960 --> 00:04:13,760
Speaker 1: United States population had been really divided in terms of

69
00:04:13,840 --> 00:04:17,600
Speaker 1: whether to go to war. Public opinion had been gradually

70
00:04:17,680 --> 00:04:20,360
Speaker 1: shifting over the previous few years, but there was still

71
00:04:20,440 --> 00:04:23,480
Speaker 1: a huge strain of isolationism and a lot of people

72
00:04:23,520 --> 00:04:25,760
Speaker 1: who just did not want the United States to become

73
00:04:25,800 --> 00:04:29,640
Speaker 1: involved in another war at all. But after the bombing

74
00:04:29,640 --> 00:04:32,440
Speaker 1: of Pearl Harbor that completely changed, and the public and

75
00:04:32,480 --> 00:04:35,600
Speaker 1: the government alike were united behind the idea of going

76
00:04:35,640 --> 00:04:39,640
Speaker 1: to war against Japan. After the United States declared war

77
00:04:39,720 --> 00:04:42,120
Speaker 1: on Japan in response to the bombing of Pearl Harbor,

78
00:04:42,279 --> 00:04:45,039
Speaker 1: Germany and Italy declared war on the United States not

79
00:04:45,120 --> 00:04:48,080
Speaker 1: long after that brought the United States into World War

80
00:04:48,120 --> 00:04:51,719
Speaker 1: Two in both Europe and the Pacific. Thanks to Casey

81
00:04:51,760 --> 00:04:54,680
Speaker 1: Pigraham and Chandler Mayze for their audio work on this show.

82
00:04:55,240 --> 00:04:57,080
Speaker 1: You can subscribe to The State in History Class on

83
00:04:57,160 --> 00:05:00,440
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, Google podcast, the I Heart Radio app, and

84
00:05:00,440 --> 00:05:03,560
Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts. Tune in tomorrow for the

85
00:05:03,600 --> 00:05:12,320
Speaker 1: birth of a woman who was called a king h