Library of Congress Blog
“Light and liberty go together.”

Driving to work this morning, I noticed the flags of federal office buildings lowered to half-staff. Quite often, that means that a member of Congress or a notable government official has died, so my heart always leaps into my throat if I don�t already know the specific reason why.

And then I remembered today�s date: December 7, 2007. For many Americans, that awful morning two-thirds of a century ago�December 7, 1941�still feels ever-present, an attack on U.S. soil that resonates strongly even in our 21st-century lives.

Pearl Harbor and its aftermath are well-represented in the collections of the Library of Congress. A good place to start is our �Today in History� page, which includes links to the archive of �man-on-the-street� interviews organized by folklorist Alan Lomax almost immediately afterward. Another highlight of the collections is the original naval dispatch from the commander-in-chief of the Pacific fleet, or CINCPAC, which contained only nine ominous words: �AIR RAID ON PEARL HARBOR X THIS IS NOT DRILL.�

(Image: Detail of CINCPAC naval dispatch, Dec. 7, 1941)

Tags: december 7, dec 7, december 7 1941, pearl harbor, pearl harbor day, hawaii, world war ii, wwii, world war 2

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This entry was posted on Friday, December 7th, 2007 at 11:53 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.