The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, December 7th, 1941, struck an America unaware and unprepared; they left an America shocked into a new age. At dawn, on that Sunday morning, the dive bombers and torpedo planes of the Imperial Japanese Navy laid waste to the United States military and naval bases in the Hawaiian Islands; they also devastated the prevalent American outlook on the world: neutral, isolationist, introspective, broadly ignorant of the world. Before December 7th 1941, Americans viewed foreign relations as secondary, optional, and commercial; afterwards, they became primary, vital, and military. There has not been a day since that day, when the United States did not have military forces scattered around the world on alert for a new attack.
For ease of navigation within this exhibit, the digital resources have been grouped into seven categories as they were in the original exhibit:
You can find thousands of additional documents about the history of East Carolina University digitized at in our Digital Collections.
