London, England • September 3, 1939 Addressing a national audience by radio on this date in 1939, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain intoned the following words: “This morning the British ambassador in Berlin handed the German Government a final Note stating that, unless we heard from them by 11 o’clock that they were prepared at once to…
Montford Point, North Carolina • August 26, 1942 On this date in 1942, 12 miles/19 km upriver from the new whites-only amphibious training camp at Camp Lejeune, the first set of black Marine Corps recruits set up a segregated recruit depot of their own. The training camp, named Montford Point, was a satellite camp of Camp Lejeune…
Tokyo, Japan • August 14, 1945 Two days after the United States had dropped a second atomic bomb on a major Japanese city, this on Nagasaki on August 9, Emperor Hirohito (posthumously referred to as Emperor Shōwa) personally intervened during an Imperial Conference (Gozen Kaigi) to let diehard hawks in his government and armed services know…
Washington, D.C. • August 10, 1988 On this date in 1988 U.S. President Ronald Regan signed into law the Civil Liberties Act of 1988. Regan’s signature corrected a wrong that occurred when another American president, Franklin D. Roosevelt, issued Executive Order 9066. The February 19, 1942, order directly led to the exile and incarceration of more…
Moscow, Soviet Union • August 8, 1945 On this date the Soviet Union declared war on Japan, the last Axis hold-out after the Soviets and their Western Allies had vanquished Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill had long urged Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin to join…
Peconic, Long Island, New York • August 2, 1939 On this date in 1939, 1 month before the outbreak of World War II in Europe, distinguished German-born professor, mathematician, and physicist Albert Einstein wrote President Franklin D. Roosevelt about the possibility of using a nuclear chain reaction to produce enormous amounts of energy that could be used…
Trinity Test Site near Alamogordo, New Mexico • July 16, 1945 On this date in 1945 the first detonation of an atomic bomb directly led to greater unimaginable destruction when “Little Boy” and “Fat Man” immolated Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9, 1945, respectively. Up until July 16, 1945, military brass and military and civilian scientists…
Washington, D.C. • July 4, 1942 On this date in 1942 Gen. Claire Lee Chennault was appointed commander of China Air Task Force (CATF), replacing his original (officially disbanded) command, the American Volunteer Group (AVG) of “Flying Tigers” fame. The AVG volunteer group of U.S. Army, Navy, and Marine flyers had been created by Nationalist…
Tokyo, Japan • July 2, 1941 On this date in 1941, in an Imperial Conference of high-level Japanese officials (Gozen Kaigi), Shōwa Emperor Hirohito sanctioned the military seizure of bases in the south of Vichy French Indochina (present-day Vietnam). It was in keeping with Japan’s so-far unsuccessful attempts to force the surrender of their Chinese…
London, England • June 25, 1940 Under the threat of imminent invasion from Nazi Germany, the British government on this date in 1940 began interning all suspect aliens living in the United Kingdom. Thousands of Germans, Austrians, and Italians, including Jewish refugees from the Nazis, were placed behind barbed wire in England (racetracks and unfinished…