The attack on Pearl Harbor

With Pearl Harbor , the European war of 1939 acquires its characteristic of world conflict on December 7, 1941, after the attack of Japan on the US naval base from Pearl Harbor , the war spreads throughout the world and transforms into the World War II .And not just because a new theater of operations opens in Asia and in the Pacific, but because the Japanese action is going to be the trigger that will launch the United States into war.

USS Maryland and USS Oklahom, December 7, 1941 (History of War)

Until Pearl Harbor , two conflicts juxtaponed in the world, because the European war generated by the Nazi government of Germany had been preceded by that of China in 1937, with the conquest of Manchuria.

The conflict in China , without emb argo, it was a conflict until then located, and that around 1940 seemed to be in a stalemate. Japan , owner of the eastern ports, of the big cities and Asian communication routes from Beijing to Nankin and Canton, had not delved into the conquest of Chinese territory.

Trying to look for other fields of expansion, the Japanese government turns its gaze to European colonialism in Asia, now weakened by the war in Europe. The United States soon poses the danger that its positioning in the Pacific will be compromised by Japanese expansionism, so that a policy of rigorous measures and economic sanctions begins to curb the Japanese advance.The US government seizes exports successively of iron and steel to Japan , and blocks Japanese assets, to ban, finally, in 1941, oil shipments.

Next, the US ambassador to Japan points out the obvious danger of such a policy.And he is not mistaken.In October 1941, General Hideki Tojo is appointed Prime Minister of Japan, Tojo is the man of the military expansion, which manages to agree to the army of the land and the navy.

On December 7 in the morning, the US fleet is destroyed by surprise in the port of Pearl Harbor , on the Hawaii islands.A powerful Japanese fleet approached the base, more than 5,000 kilometers from Tokyo, and launched its aircraft on its enemies launchers and their bombers, supported by eight battleships and three cruisers.More than 200 aircraft were put out of combat; Only the three US carriers that left the port could escape the destruction.

The attack on Pearl Harbor

The attack on Pearl Harbor of Japanese bombers and launcher planes ( DelsJourney )

Pearl Harbor had two immediate consequences.First, the full support of American public opinion for the Roosvelt policy: thereafter, war becomes a personal issue for United States .Indignation definitely eliminates American isolationism.

Second, Pearl Harbor supposes, in a first phase, the air and naval domain of Japan, after the destruction of the US fleet and the touch of grace for the already weakened British navy (on December 8, England loses its most important units, the Prince of W ales and the Repulse ). Japan expands rapidly throughout the Pacific Ocean, setting the foundations for a new warlike focus of World War II.

Sources:

Roncayolo, M.: Our Contemporaries, The World and its History, Argos
"Pearl Harbor Damage Revealed" , LIFE Magazine, December 14, 1942, Time Inc.
"So you don't remember Pearl Harbor?" , Popular Mechanics, December 1966, Vol.126 , No.6, Hearst Magazines.

Comments

Hernando Tellez Biography

Hernando Téllez (Santafé de Bogotá, 1908-1966) Colombian writer and journalist.From a very young age, he showed his journalistic skills, as a contributor to the magazine Universidad directed by Germán Arciniegas, and as an assistant to Enrique Santos in El Tiempo . He was also deputy director of El Liberal and director of the magazine Semana .During the period between 1943 and 1944 he served as Colombian consul in Marseille and senator of the Republic, but he stood out above all for being one of the most complete writers of his time (he was a translator, commentator, short story writer, essayist and literary critic ). In his extensive essay work he dealt with issues of literature, society, politics and everyday life.Téllez was a poet of the essay, as well as profound; He was a great craftsman of the language, a teacher in a sober and effective handling of the language.He was a sensitive observer of daily life, an acute critic of the social and political life of the country...

Jean-Baptiste-Joseph Fourier Biography

Jean-Baptiste-Joseph Fourier (Auxerre, France, 1768-Paris, 1830) French engineer and mathematician.He was the son of a tailor, and was educated by the Benedictines.Positions in the Army Scientific Corps were reserved for families of recognized status, so he accepted a military professorship in mathematics. Joseph Fourier During the French Revolution he had a prominent role in his own district, and was rewarded with a candidacy for a chair at the École Polytechnique.Fourier accompanied Napoleon on his eastern expedition of 1798, and was appointed governor of Lower Egypt.Isolated from France by the British fleet, it organized the workshops that the French army had to count on for its ammunition supplies.He also contributed numerous writings on mathematics to the Egyptian Institute that Napoleon founded in Cairo. After the British victories and the capitulation of the French under General Menou in 1801, Joseph Fourier returned to France, where he was appointed prefect of the depa...

The legacy of Johannes Gutenberg

In the German city of Mainz , on the west bank of the Rhine River, an unknown character was found dead in February 1468.For a few years this indigent old man and half blind he received an assignment of clothes, grains and wine from the local governor, the same who had his headquarters on the other side of the river Rhin, in Wiesbaden .Very few people remembered who he was or what he had achieved His name was Johannes Gutenberg and he was the father of modern printing. inkart Johannes Gutenberg was born in the within a patrician family of Mainz, transforming himself into a goldsmith and a worker in metal.Later he became a member of the goldsmith's guild of Strasbourg , which was then a German city, where he began working in a No very expensive dream that haunted him: finding a method to print medieval manuscripts that were carefully handcrafted, without sacrificing their elaborate ornamental design. It was only in 1455 when Gutenberg produced his first printed book, ...

Agnes De Mille Biography

Agnes De Mille (New York, 1909- id , 1993) American dancer and choreographer.Niece of C.B.De Mille has collaborated on musical comedies and has moved away from classical ballet in favor of a more popular style ( Rodeo , 1942; A rose for Emily , 1971).She has worked as a consultant in musical comedies and has dedicated herself to recovering the American folk tradition.

Jean André Deluc Biography

Jean André Deluc (Geneva, 1727-Windsor, 1817) Swiss physicist.For years he combined his business with studies and scientific expeditions in the Alps.From 1773 until his death he was a reader of the Duchess Carlota of Mecklenburg, wife of the British monarch George III; In this second stage of his life, devoted mainly to research, he published numerous works on geology. Jean André Deluc Jean André Deluc also devoted himself to the study of meteorology and calorimetry and perfected various instruments.He also developed a theory on the variation of water vapor pressure with density and pressure, and showed that the maximum density of water is reached at 4ºC.

Jose Hernandez Biography

José Hernández (Perdriel, San Martín, 1834-Buenos Aires, 1886) Argentine poet, author of Martín Fierro , a work that is considered the pinnacle of gaucho literature and an outstanding classic of Argentine literature. José Hernández As a child he was in the care of uncles and grandparents while his parents worked in the fields.He studied at the Liceo Argentino de San Telmo, but a chest illness made him leave Buenos Aires and join his father in a field of Camarones; by then the mother had died.The young Hernández stayed there for a few years, immersing himself in the rural world. He returned to Buenos Aires after the Battle of Caseros (1852), and was involved in the political struggles that divided the country after the fall of Juan Manuel de Rosas.Of federal convictions, he joined the government of the Confederation, faced with Buenos Aires.For 1856 some sources place it in Paraná; others delay that residence until 1858, but the truth is that Hernández worked in that city as a...

José Bonifácio de Andrada e Silva Biography

José Bonifácio de Andrada e Silva (Santos, Brazil, 1763-Niteroi, id., 1838) Brazilian politician and scientist.He traveled through Europe dedicated to the study of mineralogy, and came into contact with the Enlightenment.In 1819, with an established prestige, he returned to Brazil and was involved in the decisive events that took place in the then colony.Member of the Freemasonry and close collaborator of the future Pedro I, he contributed to the preparation of the independence movement of 1822, which proclaimed Pedro I Emperor of Brazil.Later, and in view of the new political events that distanced him from the king, he emigrated to France (1823-1829).In 1831, and after the monarch's abdication of his five-year-old son, the future Pedro II, he returned to Brazil as the young king's tutor.

Gene Kelly Biography

Gene Kelly (Eugene Patrick Curran Kelly; Pittsburgh, United States, 1912-Beverly Hills, id., 1996) American dancer, choreographer, actor and film director.A multifaceted and versatile talent, the image of Gene Kelly is inextricably linked to some of the legendary Hollywood musicals of the 1950s, such as Singing in the Rain , A Day in New York and An American in Paris , of which he himself signed the choreographies, and even participated as co-director in the first two.He also appeared in other musicals such as Brigadoon (1954), Las girls (1957) and Las senoritas de Rochefort (1966), and in 1956 he performed Invitation to dance .His agile and athletic style, combined with a refined classical technique, revolutionized the concept of male dance in the field of film musicals. Gene Kelly The son of Irish parents, Gene Kelly was the third of five children born to the marriage of James Patrick Kelly, a traveling salesman of gramophones, and Harriet Eckhardt.He attended the U...

Jordi Pujol Biography

Jordi Pujol (Jordi Pujol i Soley; Barcelona, 1930) Spanish politician, president of the Generalitat of Catalonia from 1980 to 2003.He studied medicine, although he did not feel a special vocation.His nationalistic and religious sentiment was already manifested in his youth, when he carried out apostolate work in the slums of his hometown; thus, he participated in the creation of the Catholic institution Catòlics Catalans. Once he finished his degree, he worked in the Fides Cuatrecases pharmaceutical laboratories, and took part in subversive incidents, such as the tram strike that took place in Barcelona in 1956, the dismissal of the president of the newspaper La Vanguardia or the incident at the Palacio de la Música in 1960, in which he interrupted a concert attended by Francisco Franco and his ministers to sing a Catalan anthem banned by the regime.He was sentenced by a court martial to seven years in prison. Jordi Pujol At the beginning of the sixties he founded with other...

John david beazley Biography

John David Beazley (Glasgow, 1885-Oxford, 1970) British archaeologist.He studied the Greek ceramics of the s.VII to IV.He is the author of Attic Vase Painters with Black Figures (1956) and Attic Vase Painters with Red Figures (1963).

History Today Online

Search This Blog