Executive Order 9066 enables mass removal and incarceration

Japanese forces attacked the U.S. Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, bringing the United States into the war. The attack took place in Hawai‘i, a U.S. territory whose Native Hawaiian sovereignty had...

Within hours of Pearl Harbor, Japan attacked British Malaya and Hong Kong, the U.S. Philippines, and other sites across the Pacific. Its rhetoric of Asian liberation from Western colonialism won...

British colonial Hong Kong surrendered to Japan on Christmas Day after a short, brutal campaign. Japanese occupation brought executions, imprisonment, forced labor, shortages, and currency controls....

At Wannsee, senior Nazi officials coordinated how state ministries would assist the already developing genocide of Europe’s Jews. The meeting did not initiate the Holocaust or make the first...

After a rapid campaign down the Malay Peninsula, British-led forces surrendered Singapore. The defeat shattered the myth of European military superiority and intensified Japanese occupation across the...

Dutch forces in Java surrendered to Japan, ending Dutch colonial rule there and beginning a harsh occupation. Japanese authorities mobilized Indonesian labor, extracted rice and other resources, and...

After months of siege, Filipino and U.S. forces on Bataan surrendered to Japan. Thousands of prisoners were forced on a march under extreme heat, hunger, illness, and abuse; many died. Filipino...

The first 29 Navajo recruits arrived for Marine training in May 1942, building a secure communications system from their language. The military depended on Indigenous linguistic knowledge even as...

At Midway, U.S. forces destroyed four Japanese aircraft carriers and checked Japan’s rapid expansion. The battle’s strategic importance is clear, but its familiar carrier-centered narrative can...

Allied troops landed on Guadalcanal, beginning a six-month campaign against Japanese forces. Solomon Islanders served as guides, coastwatchers, laborers, and rescuers, often at great personal risk....