The Presidential Address to Congress of December 8, 1941 was delivered by the Us President Franklin Delano Roosevelt the day after the Japanese attack on the Pearl Harbor Base.
The event:
The Pearl Harbor Base, located on the Hawaiian island of O'ahu, was attacked on the morning of December 7 by 353 Japanese planes. The assault was carried out in two phases, both by airplanes and military ships. The final result was the damage of all the eight Us Navy battleships, with four of them being sunk, the destruction of eight other ships, the loss of 188 aircrafts, the death of 2402 people and the wounds for other 1247 Americans.
The speech:
Franklin Delano Roosevelt made a very brief speech, long approximately seven minutes.
He started, as usual in these occasions, with an address to the others political figures ("Mr. Vice President, Mr. Speaker, Members of the Senate, and of the House of Representatives").
The speech was later called the Infamy Speech, citing a passage in which the President indicated the date of the attack as "a date which will live in infamy".
No more others direct interactions with the audience are made, except the last sentence in which he asked to "that Congress declare ... a state of war ... between the United States and the Japanese Empire".
But, obviously, this speech was addressed to all the American citizens, primarily, and to all the International community. After this event, the Second World War became a World-wide War in the pure sense and the perspectives completely changed.
A.
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