attacked the US at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii.

The attack claimed over 2,400 American lives

and sank multiple Navy ships.

But what happened immediately afterward?

Well, today we're going to take a look

at what happened immediately after the attack on Pearl

Harbor.

But before we get started, be sure to subscribe to the Weird

History Channel and let us know in the comments

below what other war timelines you would like to hear about.

OK?

So let's head back to a day that lived in infamy.

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The attack on Pearl Harbor changed day-to-day life

in Hawaii for years afterward.

Within hours, the army declared martial law

throughout the territory, and at 6:00 PM

that evening a strict curfew went into effect.

The army even ordered all public places closed, including bars.

But that was just the beginning.

The army actually went as far as to temporarily prohibit

the sale of alcohol throughout the entire state.

Schools were closed, and all food sales

were suspended so the military could inventory the island's

food stocks.

Gasoline rations went into effect almost immediately.

And while that state of martial law

was a response to the attack, it would remain

in effect in Hawaii until 1944.

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The first report about the Pearl Harbor attack

reached the mainland around 2:00 PM Eastern time

on December 7, 1941.

Short and to the point, it read "Air raid, Pearl Harbor.

This is no drill."

President Roosevelt was one of the first

to learn of the attack from Secretary

of the Navy, Frank Knox.

In fact, it all happened so fast,

the attack was actually still in progress

as Roosevelt began to weigh his next move.

He called Press Secretary Steve Early

and ordered him to release a statement

to the media, which still hadn't learned of the bombings.

Early put together a three-way call with the major news

services, and their first bulletin went out at 2:22 PM.

It read--

Flash-- Washington.

The White House announces Japanese attack

on Pearl Harbor.

Once the news was out, it spread like wildfire.

Radio networks across the country

even cut into their broadcast to report on the emerging

situation.

As the attack continued, a reporter

with NBC's Honolulu affiliate climbed

onto the roof of the Honolulu Advertiser building.

Carrying a microphone and a telephone,

the reporter phoned in the first eyewitness

account of the attack.

The battle had been raging for three hours at that point,

and the reporter told viewers, many of whom

were initially skeptical that the US would really

be attacked, that--

It is no joke.

This is a real war.

This first eyewitness account was quickly

followed by reports of Japanese airstrikes in Thailand

and the Philippines.

The Japanese were also sending soldiers into Hong Kong

to seize the British colony.

It was a massive coordinated effort,

and it seemed to be working.

Working in concert with the military,

FBI agents quickly descended on Hawaii

to round up suspicious persons, and around them up they did.

Within 40 hours of the attack, more than 2,000 people

were detained.

And with the state under martial law,

these people had no right to habeas corpus or a trial

by jury.

One suspect was 13-year-old Walter Oka, a Japanese-American

accused of tracking military ships in the days

before the attack.

FBI agents descended on Oka's home.

But once they realized he was just a child,

they dropped the investigation and hopefully felt

pretty embarrassed about the whole thing.

All the images of the Pearl Harbor bombing

were immediately censored.

Military personnel seized both still and motion pictures

of the attack.

And by noon, the army had blocked

the transmission of any unauthorized information

about the raid.

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As reports of the attack on Pearl Harbor

began to fill the radio, listeners across the country

panicked.

Among the genuine information was plenty of misinformation,

and the false reports only fueled the chaos.

CBS News incorrectly reported that Japanese paratroopers had

been spotted in Honolulu and had been sighted off Harbor Point.

The same station reported a handful of civilian casualties

in Honolulu and dive bombers attacking the city

from a Japanese aircraft carrier.

They also claim that aerial dogfights were raging

in the skies over Honolulu.

None of it was true, but at the moment

the general public had no way of knowing that.

And the misinformation fueled anxiety

about the extent of the attack.

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As everyone's fear-based reactions kicked in,

Japanese-Americans quickly fell under blanket suspicion.

This made things extra complicated

since in Hawaii at the time 37% of all residents

were of Japanese heritage.

These people were heavily scrutinized,

and even President Roosevelt promoted

the idea of removing all Japanese people

from the island of Oahu.

However, the military realized such around up would

be impractical and would affect the labor

division on the island.

Later in 1942, Roosevelt would force 120,000 Americans

of Japanese descent living on the mainland

to live in internment camps during World War II.

Out of fear, Japanese people living on the islands

hit anything that linked them to Japan.

Members of the Nakasone household, for example,

made sure they didn't have any images of the Japanese emperor.

Jane Kurahara, who was a child living in Honolulu at the time,

later recalled that she wasn't supposed

to speak Japanese anymore, saying

it was almost like a sin.

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In San Francisco, Upton Close, and NBC radio personality,

phoned the Japanese consulate to find out more about the attack.

On the phone, the Consul General Secretary Kazuyoshi Inagaki

said the attack was a complete surprise to the consulate.

On the air, Close, himself, speculated

that the claim could be true.

He reasoned that it was easily possible that the bombing was

a coup engineered by a small portion of the Japanese Navy

that had gone fanatic.

He even asserted that it might be

possible for the Japanese government

to repudiate the action and repair the injury to America.

However, inside the consulate panicking Japanese officials

were burning sensitive documents.

The blaze grew out of control, and the fire department

was called to put out the fire.

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Americans on the West Coast, the closest part

of the mainland US to Japan, worried

about additional attacks.

On the afternoon of the bombing, San Francisco's NBC station

reported that there was no indication whatsoever

that any sabotage had taken place

or that any Japanese spies or saboteurs were at work.

Not taking any chances, in Los Angeles

the County Sheriff rushed to Little Tokyo

to take charge of the district.

According to reports, the sheriff

gathered up a number of volunteers

and set up a watching post to keep an eye on the Japanese,

but they didn't see anything that

required any kind of action.

In fact, people on both sides of the fence

remain calm and decent.

Not surprising when you remember they were also all Americans.

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Meanwhile, back in Hawaii, the military

wasn't taking any risks.

Worried that Japanese-Americans could be loyal to Japan

after the attack, the military ordered all Japanese residents

to turn over banned items.

This included radios and binoculars

that might be used to signal Japanese forces,

as well as any firearms.

Japanese-Americans were suddenly enemies in their own country.

And with martial law declared, they had no right

to defend themselves in court.

As night fell on the West Coast, the states

of Washington, Oregon, and California,

concerned about being attacked, observed a blackout.

Residents were asked to turn off all their lights

once it was dark so that enemy aircraft couldn't identify

cities.

Civilian radio stations also went off the air

since aircraft could also locate cities using radio waves.

When darkness fell in Seattle, radio station KIRO

announced that every light of any kind in the area

must be out by 11 o'clock.

Residents were informed that the test their blackout,

they would have plenty of time between the hours of 7:00

and 11:00.

This time was to be used, among other things,

to get heavy black paper and heavy drapes to seal windows.

No headlights were to be used on automobiles,

and no lights whatsoever were to be showing anywhere

on the Pacific coast until 30 minutes after daylight.

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In Seattle, people took the blackout very seriously.

In fact, when it went into effect,

a mob targeted businesses that did not turn out their lights,

leading to a riot.

It began at 4th Avenue and pike street downtown.

The lighted letters of the Foremen and Clark

store shown even during the blackout.

A crowd gathered, throwing rocks at the lights.

Over the course of an hour, rioters

smashed most of the 12-letter sign, then moved

on to other lights.

Teenager Ethel Chelsvig soon became the leader of the mob.

She shouted, break them, turn them out, and asked the crowd

if they would really just stand by and do nothing

while the lights threatened the very life of the city.

Chelsvig was detained and when questioned by the police,

she told them, this is war.

One light in the city might betray us.

She was eventually fined $25 for disorderly conduct.

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Newsrooms quickly prepare their headline stories

on the Pearl Harbor attack.

Typographers searched for their largest typefaces.

Around the country, the headlines read "War,"

and readers snatched up the papers the morning

after the attack.

The San Francisco Chronicle concluded, if war had to come,

it is perhaps well that it came this way--

wanton, unwarned, in fraud, and under a flag of truce.

And in the Los Angeles Times, an editorial read,

Japan has asked for it.

It was the act of a mad dog, a gangster's parody

of every principle of international honor.

On the morning of December 8, 1941, less than 24 hours

after the attack, President Roosevelt

gave a speech to a joint session of Congress.

The speech went down in history, where Roosevelt's assertion

that December 7th would be a day that would live in infamy.

He asked Congress for a declaration of war

against Japan, and they gave him one that very day.

Three days later, Japan's allies, Germany and Italy,

declared war on the US.

The rest, as they say, is history.

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So what do you think?

Did anything about the timeline surprise you?

Let us know in the comments below.

And while you're at it, check out some of these other videos

from our Weird History.

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