Historical+Background

** __Background__ **

In 1939 a war broke out in Europe and became the Second World War. Japan, Italy, and Germany, the axis powers, were fighting against Great Britain, France, China, the Soviet Union, and many other countries, the allied powers. Japan had been an ally of the United Stated for many years. The Treaty of Versailles, that ended World War I, distributed the land that Germany had seized. Japan wanted to take back Shantung, which was promised to them by the British. They were not able to get it back. President Woodrow Wilson stood in their way and said “We gave them what they should not have deserved” (theamericancause 1). The Treaty of Versailles did not just upset Germany, //Japan was also agitated//.
 * The Ending of an Alliance **

The United States had asked Britain to end their 20 year alliance with Japan, which they had followed through with and was ended. //This made Japan angry because they became isolated// while there were expanding empires surrounding them. Japan decided to start colonizing in China as the British had in India. //Japan had a desire to expand also.// Japan took over French Indochina which grabbed the attention of the United States and the president, **Franklin D. Roosevelt**. The U.S. did not want Japan to have too much control, so they placed an embargo on them and cut off the trade of steel, iron, and fuel. They also made Japan unable to buy oil which was needed for their navy and air force.

** Pearl Harbor ** While wanting to expand into the pacific, they feared the United States base in Pearl Harbor could destroy their planes. //From their fear and fury from the past, on December 7, 1941, Japan bombed Pearl Harbor in Hawaii causing the United States to enter the war.// This attacked was planned by **Nagano Osami**. After the bombing the //American government became paranoid that there may be enemy spies in the country,// on the home front. To protect America the government started the registration of enemy aliens on February 2, 1942. The FBI also did “search-and-seizure raids” (u-s-history 1) in the homes of Japanese people. From the fear of spies, mainly Japanese spies, the Secretary of War, **Henry Stimson** met with **Franklin Roosevelt** to discuss the safety of Americans and their army bases. He asked to remove citizen and non-citizen Japanese to detention camps. He didn't want a large population of people on the coast and neat the bases. They wanted to protect the Pacific coast not have the risk of having any spies on the coast. Click on the link below to watch a video and make your decisio n on what to do. The Decision