This Day in History:
Pearl Harbor Is Bombed December 7, 1941 360 Japanese warplanes carried out the Sunday morning surprise attack on the U.S. naval base at
Pearl Harbor. 2,400 Americans
were killed in the
attack and another
1,200 were wounded. Five U.S. battleships, three destroyers and seven other ships were either destroyed or sunk. Japan lost fewer
than 100 men
during the attack. The next day, following President Franklin Roosevelt's "Infamy" speech, Congress recognized a state of war between the U.S. and Japan. America had entered
World War II. Three days later,
war was declared on
the U.S. by Germany and Italy. The American contribution
to the successful Allied war
effort cost more than
400,000 American lives.