World War II

On December 7, 1941, Daniel Inouye and his family were preparing to go to church when the attack on Pearl Harbor began. The former United States Senator from Hawaii accounts his experiences of that day. Hundreds of Japanese war planes attacked the American Pacific Fleet by surprise, killing 2,403, and destroying battleships, aircraft, and naval vessels in an act that would lead the United States to declare war on Japan. Learning Objective: Students will understand how the attack on Pearl Harbor led to the United States entering World War II.

The afternoon following the attack on Pearl Harbor, Americans gathered at their radios to hear President Franklin Delano Roosevelt ask a joint section of Congress for a declaration of war against Japan. Learning Objective: Students will understand the government’s response to the attack on Pearl Harbor.  Students will compare and contrast presidential responses to terror attacks.

On June 6, 1944, D-Day in the European Theater, 1.5 million Allied troops embarked on one of the greatest missions in history: the invasion of France. Learning Objective: Students will analyze how integral D-Day was to bringing about the end of World War II in Europe.

Veterans of World War II Ray Leopold, Burnett Miller, and Dwain Luce discuss the horror of the Holocaust, liberating the camps, and witnessing the horrors that still haunt them. Learning Objective: Students will understand the impact the Holocaust had on the liberating American troops.

As the country mobilized for total war, Americans were asked to do without the luxuries and necessities they had come to take for granted. Gasoline, fuel oil, rubber, tin foil, shoes, chewing gum, butter, nylons, canned goods, cigarettes and more were in short supply. Each American family was asked to collect scrap metal that would be recycled for armaments.  Learning Objective: Students will understand how the American public participated in "total war" by doing without some necessities and luxuries.

Learning Objectives Students will: Examine life in America prior to its entry into World War II. Identify the changes brought on by wartime industry to industrial boomtowns. Evaluate the socio-economic changes in the character of four World War II-era boomtowns and the reasons for those changes.

During World War II, African Americans found themselves with conflicting feelings about supporting the war effort, since their own country did not offer them the freedom America was fighting for overseas. The Double Victory — Double V— campaign, begun by the Pittsburgh Courier newspaper in 1942, helped to address this issue. It encouraged African Americans to participate at every level in winning the war abroad, while also fighting for their civil rights at home. You had a white water fountain, and a black water fountain. And a black would get into trouble if he went and drank at the white water fountain. My friend at Brookley Field had his head busted wide open because he drank at the white fountain. — John Gray, The War Learning Objectives Students will: Identify the historical context of the scope of America’s unequal treatment of African Americans. View video segments from the Ken Burns film, take notes, and answer questions. Evaluate whether participation in the war effort helped or hindered African Americans’ quest for civil rights.

The experience of combat is perhaps the ultimate test for human beings. No other human activity creates such heightened emotions. No other human activity is so potentially final in its results. Humans often have a paradoxical relationship with combat and war; sometimes it is revered and other times despised. We use its euphemisms in describing athletic events (check out the headlines on any sports page). We see it glorified in our literature and condemned in our political speeches. The sheer terror of knowing that the next one is going to have your name on it, when that goes on and on and on...you get a strange feeling in which you seem to become detached and you just think, well maybe this will end and maybe it won’t and maybe we’ll all be blown up and maybe we won’t... but who cares. And you learn to sort of live with it. It is just a matter of fate. You will either survive if the Lord is willing or you will not. So there’s really nothing you can do. And you just take it. — Sidney Phillips, The War Learning Objectives Students will: Analyze combat testimonials from World War II. Identify the physical and psychological injuries that soldiers experience.

This lesson introduces students to the principles of just war theory, the basis of international agreements such as the Geneva Conventions that regulate the conduct of nations in wartime. The lesson asks students to consider the six principles of jus ad bellum, or what makes a war just, as applied to World War II. Students read Roosevelt’s Joint Address to Congress Leading to a Declaration of War Against Japan (the "day that will live in infamy" speech) in order to assess whether or not Roosevelt spelled out the case for a just war. Students will: Examine the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and identify its effect on U.S. history. Review elements of just war theory, the basis of international law regarding warfare. Analyze a speech and its effect on the American people.

In the twelve years of his presidency, Franklin D. Roosevelt delivered only 30 fireside chats. He used radio strategically, to avoid becoming frequent enough to be written-off or ignored. As World War II unfolded in Europe, German forces occupied or threatened most of the continent and Japan dominated the South Pacific, driving American forces down the Bataan peninsula. FDR used the radio to explain the War Americans, often encouraging his listeners to follow along on a map to better understand the events he described. Historians argue that FDR used his radio program strategically to gain public support for U.S. entry into WWII, which had initially been an overwhelmingly unpopular proposition.

In 1944, Franklin D. Roosevelt wrote a prayer and read it over the radio to 100 million Americans as the World War II invasion of Normandy unfolded. This was likely the largest moment of mass prayer in human history. FDR’s son called his father a “frustrated clergyman,” because FDR acted in in service of others in front of a very large audience.

On December 7, 1941, “the day that would live in infamy,” Japanese planes attacked a U.S. naval base called Pearl Harbor in a surprise offensive. That evening, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt addressed the attack on her weekly radio program, reassuring the public and also calling on U.S. citizens to prepare for action. The day after the assault, President Franklin D. Roosevelt asked Congress to declare war on Japan. Days later, Adolph Hitler declared war on the United States.

Franklin D. Roosevelt became the first U.S. president to win a third term in office. In 1941, during the first State of the Union address of his third term, FDR described the kind of unified world he hoped would emerge after World War II — a neighborhood of nations helping one another. In 1941, FDR introduced the Lend Lease Program to help Britain stock up on supplies for the War when resources became low. The move was both a demonstration of the neighborly approach FDR had described in this address and also a move to bring The U.S. closer to entering WWII.