A Day that Continues to Live in Infamy

When Japan attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, World War II was already raging in Europe. It had begun more than two years earlier, after Hitler invaded Poland in 1939. And just months before Pearl Harbor, Nazi Germany had turned on its former ally, the Soviet Union.

We offered the allies aid in response, but we didn’t enter the war. Most Americans simply didn’t want to: In May of 1940, after Hitler invaded France, only seven percent of Americans said we should declare war on Germany.

That all changed after Pearl Harbor. In the days after the attack, just seven percent of Americans said...