December 7: Today is the anniversary of the surprise Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, in 1941.

The attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise military offensive carried out by the Imperial Japanese Navy against the naval base of the United States at Pearl Harbor (Hawaii) on the morning of Sunday, December 7, 1941.

The attack was intended as a preventive action to avoid the intervention of the Pacific Fleet of the United States in the military actions that the Empire of Japan was planning to make in Southeast Asia against overseas possessions of the United Kingdom, France, the Netherlands and the United States.

The Japanese made this offensive coincide with the attack on the possessions of the British Empire in Malaysia, Singapore and Hong Kong, all of which were already in power in mid-February 1942.

The day after the attack, December 8th, the United States declared war on the Empire of Japan. North American domestic support for nonintervention in the global conflict that had been strong disappeared while clandestine assistance to the United Kingdom was replaced by a full alliance.