Sixty-nine years ago today, Japan bombed the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawai’i, prompting the United States government to declare war on Japan, thus entering the U.S. into World War II.

Americans know it as the “date which will live in infamy,” as President Franklin D. Roosevelt declared it just a day after the attack. On the morning of December 7, 1941, a fleet of Japanese war planes successfully launched a surprise attack on the U.S. naval base. There are several factors that characterize the attack and distinguish it from other wartime events in American history, one of which is the attack’s element of surprise. While the U.S. and Japan’s relationship had been getting more and more contentious as the war in Europe waged on, the U.S. did not think a Japanese attack on American soil was probable. Hawai’i and Japan are 4,000 miles apart, and there were several European colonies much closer to Japan in the South Pacific.

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