pearl harbor

A Brief Overview of Pearl Harbor

December 7th , 1941 was famously called A day that will live in infamy ' by President Franklin D . Roosevelt . On that day , Japanese forces attacked the American naval base in Pearl Harbor , Hawaii killing thousands of military personnel and civilians . The attack came completely unexpectedly (although tensions between the United States and Japan had been building for months ) and led to a declaration of war against Japan and the Axis Powers by the United States

While Pearl Harbor remains one of the most famous incidents in American

br history , there is still much not openly discussed about the event . In this essay , the background and the ramifications of Pearl Harbor will be examined and discussed so as to shed further light on what is one of the most famously infamous days in the history of the world

A great deal of the reasoning behind the attack on Pearl Harbor was the result of the United States curbing its exports of oil to Japan . During the early part of the 20th century , the oil reserves in the United States were far more bountiful than what exists today . In fact , the United States imported very little oil from foreign countries and was exporting significant volumes of oil to other nations

One nation that received a great deal of American oil was Japan . While Japan had an advanced civilization and a huge population , it was direly in need of natural resources . As such , it was heavily dependent upon the United States and other countries for the acquisition of these natural resources . When the supply of the resources was curtailed , Japan shifted to a more aggressive mode

A Brief Overview of Pearl Harbor Page 2

Far too often , history chronicles Japanese Imperialism as the acts of evil men ' In other words , the imperial forces conquered and invaded and attacked other nations for the sole purpose of expanding hegemony in to conquer and subjugate . This is a trite oversimplification of Japanese Imperialism . The reality is that Japan was resource motivated and had reached the decision that it could successful conquer other nations and acquire the resources of the conquered nations rather than co-operate with any established trade deals

The aggression of Japan was most evident in the brutal invasion of China where biological weapons were employed . Over 200 ,000 Chinese civilians perished in the attacks as Japan established an occupation of Manchuria and other parts of the Chinese mainland . Such actions did very little to improve Japan 's standing in the international community and invited a number of economic sanctions

So why was Pearl Harbor selected as the base to be attacked Essentially , Japan understood that in to further expand its acquisition of natural resources it would have to further invade other areas of Southeast Asia (Korea and Vietnam , for example , were nations that Japanese forces would later invade ) However , with every incursion into Southeast Asian territory , Japan was edging closer and closer to war with the United States...