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Japanese plane appeared in the skies over Pearl Harbor, signaling the surprise attack on the U.S. naval base near Honolulu, Hawaii. By the time Japan's forces withdrew, they had managed to destroy or damage more than 300 American planes and nearly 20 naval vessels, including eight battleships.
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75,000 United States soldiers and Filipino soldiers were surrendered to Japanese forces after months of battle. They were forced to make a 65-mile march to prison camps. An estimated 17,000 men perished during and after the march.
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American B-25 bombers were forced to launch raid hours earlier. They launched from an aircraft carrier miles east of Japan, devasting the island Okinawa.
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A clash between the U.S. Navy and the Imperial Japanese Navy that played out six months after Pearl Harbor. The U.S's successful defenses neutralized Japan's hopes seizing United States as a naval power and effectively turned the tide of World War II in the Pacific.
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Guadalcanal is on of the Solomon Islands in the South Pacific. United States halted Japanese efforts to disrupt supply routes to Australia and New Zealand. This marked several naval battles and numerous clashes ashore with almost continuous air combat.
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Largest navel engagement in history, powerful battle ships fell prey to aerial attacks. An American victory that came to the price of losing one US light carrier.
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A military campaign between U.S Marines and the Imperial Army of Japan. 750 miles off the coast of Japan located Iwo Jima, an island that had three airfields that could serve as a staging facility for potential invasion. American forces invaded the island, to which the battle lasted for five weeks. 200 or 21,000 of Japanese forces were killed.
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By the time American troops landed on Okinawa, World War II on the European front was already coming to an end.
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Three days after Hiroshima, B-29 would then drop another bomb on Japan, onto the city of Nagasaki. Killing an estimated 40,000 people.
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American B-29 bomber dropped the world's first deployed atomic bomb over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. The explosion immediately killed an estimated 80,000 people; tens of thousands would later die of the radiation exposure.
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After the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagaski, Japanese Emperor Hirohito would announce his country's unconditional surrender on radio address. Citing the devastating power of "a new and most cruel bomb."