Monday marks the 74th anniversary of the deadly attack on Pearl Harbor. It was an event that forever changed U.S. history.
The Warhawk Air Museum in Nampa is closed on Mondays. So, they opened their doors Sunday with a special display set up to commemorate the unforgettable day.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt: "December 7, 1941... a date which will live in infamy."
Young men, civilians and enlisted military members alike, knew that a war declaration would likely follow the bombing.
The surprise attack on the Hawaiian naval base was carried out by Japanese bombers in 1941.
Nearly 2,500 people were killed and another 1,000 wounded. All eight battleships were damaged or destroyed.
The horrific act seemed to bring Americans closer together.
"I was born several years after the war was over but even the community I was in was very tightly woven and neighbors helped neighbors," says Dallas John, a volunteer at the Warhawk Air Museum.
John has been a volunteer at the museum for the last 14 years. He believes it was the toughest war the U.S. has ever fought.
John thinks people tend to forget how close we came to losing the war.
World War II ended on May 8, 1945.
The allies accepted Germany's surrender about a week after Adolf Hitler committed suicide.
"You can see the beginning of the war, the devastation that was involved and then the end of the war," John says. "How wonderful it was that it actually turned out the way it did. That's a miracle in itself in my book."
Anyone wanting to get their hands on a piece of history from that day can make a trip down to the BSU Archive Department. They have newspapers from Pearl Harbor you can check out.
