What Day Was the attack on Pearl Harbor?

About this date

The Imperial Japanese Navy launched a surprise aerial attack on the US Pacific Fleet base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, sinking or damaging numerous battleships and destroying large numbers of aircraft, mostly still parked on the ground.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt addressed Congress the following day, calling December 7 "a date which will live in infamy," and the US formally declared war on Japan within hours, entering World War II.

Roughly 2,400 Americans were killed in the attack, and Germany and Italy, Japan's Axis allies, declared war on the United States just days later, drawing the US fully into the global conflict on both fronts.

Several US aircraft carriers were out at sea on maneuvers at the time of the attack and escaped damage entirely, a stroke of fortune that proved militarily significant once carrier-based warfare became central to the Pacific campaign.