War and Conflict Journal

December 7, 2009, marks the 68^th anniversary of the surprise Japanese attack on the U.S. military bases in and around Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.  This attack launched America into World War Two and literally changed the course of history.  Without being attacked first, it is highly unlikely that the U.S. would have entered World War Two.  By attacking the United States, Japan thought it would cripple or destroy the U.S. Pacific fleet, thereby preventing American forces from stopping Japan’s Asian blitzkrieg.  In the days and weeks following the Pearl Harbor attack, Japanese forces attacked American, British, Canadian, Australian, New Zealander, and Dutch forces as Japan seized the Philippines, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaya, the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia), and New Guinea.  American islands at Wake and Guam were also attacked and occupied. 

Japanese Attack on Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7, 1941

Believing that America had suffered a crippling blow, Hitler and Mussolini also declared war on the United States, thereby bringing American power into the war against the Nazis and the Fascists.  As history now shows, America’s entry into World War Two ensured Allied victory, as the Nazis and Fascists were destroyed in Europe, and Japan fell under the power of two atomic bombs some four years after their ill-fated and ill-advised assault on Pearl Harbor.

For more information, go to: http://www.historyguy.com/battle_of_pearl_harbor.html

September 1, 2009, will mark the 70th anniversary of the Nazi German invasion of Poland, which sparked World War Two in Europe.  Within days of the invasion, Britain, France, and others declared war on Germany in response.  On September 17, the Soviet Union invaded Poland from the East, sealing the eastern European nation’s fate.  Poland was to be occupied (in part or in whole), for the rest of the war, and would lose a larger percentage of its population due to the war than any other participant in World War Two.

Read more at http://www.historyguy.com/worldwartwo/german_invasion_of_poland_1939.htm