Four Days Later

Pearl Harbor didn't just bring America into the Pacific war. When Germany and Italy declared war on the US four days later (honoring their alliance with Japan), America entered the European war too. Without Pearl Harbor, the US might never have fought Hitler directly.

The attack also triggered one of America's darkest chapters: the internment of 120,000 Japanese Americans, most of them US citizens, in camps far from home. Pearl Harbor showed how quickly a nation can swing from isolation to fury, and how fear can turn a democracy against its own people.