It was 69 years ago today that the Empire of Japan launched what President Franklin Roosevelt called that “unprovoked and dastardly attack” upon the United States at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii to bring the country militarily into World War II. FDR had it right; it was dastardly, and by all accounts, unprovoked. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t unexpected; after all, the U.S. and Japan had been on the outs for quite awhile, especially with the attempted Japanese conquest of China and Japan’s signing a few years earlier of the Tripartite Pact with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy the year before. But as FDR mentioned in his speech before Congress the next day, Japan did not indicate that they had declared war on the United States, making the attack upon Pearl Harbor even more egregious.

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