Pearl Harbor Dbq Essay

December 7, 1941 was the day that America’s freedom went under attack. Japan flew six aircrafts over an American naval base in Hawaii. This naval base was most commonly known as Pearl Harbor. This day went down as one of the most memorable days in history. Because it was so shocking, everyone was left asking themselves, “Why did Japan attack Pearl Harbor?” Many things led to the bombing of Pearl Harbor but some of the most important events were that the U.S. put an embargo on oil to Japan, they expanded into Manchuria along with many other countries and they also had different ideals than Americans. Because of these reasons there were many circumstances where either America or Japan disagreed with the other. This in turn caused many problems that would later arise and even lead to the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

(REVISE) Japan took our naval base away because they believed that we had taken something away from them. Before Japan took action and bombed Pearl Harbor the U.S. put an embargo on the oil and other materials that were being exported to them. Japan would resent the U.S. for this decision because due to their geographic location they did not have any oil fields to retrieve oil from (Doc B). Since Japan did not have any oil fields locally, they imported it from many other
In that situation a larger, more powerful country takes over to help them. In Japan during the 1930s, this was the opposite. Japan was expanding and controlling other countries and the U.S. did not want to be involved with it. Japan, being as powerful as it is believes that Manchuria is like a reservoir and East Asia is the paddy field (Doc A). Japan is saying that East Asia feeds off of Manchuria and Japan feeds off the both of them to become more powerful. Japan’s power does not solely come from Manchuria and East Asia though. Japan expanded into many other countries at the time including Taiwan (Doc