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The Draft
The U.S. Congress passed the Selective Training and Service Act by the slimmest margin of one vote. President Roosevelt signed the bill into law on September 16. The act required all men between the ages of 21 and 36 to register with their local draft boards. -
Pearl Harbor
Japan invaded the Normandy coast of France on December 7, 1941. More than 2,000 American soldiers and pilots died. Congress allowed President Franklin D. Roosevelt to declare war on Japan the next day. -
Japanese Americans
120,000 Japanese Americans were forced into internment camps. They were taken away from their businesses, farms, and homes. in 1943, all internees had to fill out a form questioning their loyalty to the U.S. government. -
Executive Order 9066
This order gave the Military power to ban any citizen within a 60 mile wide coastal area. The order also authorized transporting these citizens to assembly centers that had been set up by the military in California, Arizona, Washington state, and Oregon. It also applied to Americans of German or Italian descent. -
Battle of Saipan
The battle had 15 battleships with 165,00 shells being fired. Over 8000 Marines landed on the west coast of Saipan. Japanese soldiers had installed barbed wire, machine gun emplacements and trenches. Despite the casualties the Marines had because of this they had taken the beachhead by nightfall. -
Iwo Jima
The 36-day assault resulted in more than 26,000 American casualties, including 6,800 dead. Of the 20,000 Japanese defenders, only 1,083 survived. Twenty-seven Medals of Honor were awarded to Marines and sailors -
Women in WW11
Women worked while men were away fighting in WW11. Women took the jobs of their husbands. In addition 350,000 women served in the Armed Forces. -
Atomic bombing
On August 6, 1945, an American B-29 bomber dropped the world’s first deployed atomic bomb over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Three days later, a second B-29 dropped another A-bomb on Nagasaki. on August 15, Japan unconditionally surrendered in WWII.
