The Road To Pearl Harbor, 1919-1941

Overview of the U.S.-Japanese relationship and the latter's foreign policy from the turn of the 20th century to 1933.

Disillusioned by the horrors of World War I, the U.S. tries to isolate itself from the rest of the world, imposes strict immigration quotas and ushers in racism and ethnic discrimination.

FDR's greatest foreign policy success, The Good Neighbor Policy, was a key development in reversing the U.S. imperialistic attitude toward Latin America under the Monroe Doctrine.

President Wilson's hopes of world peace through collective security clash at Versailles with European politicians who want to punish Germany, sowing the seeds of World War II.

FDR cuts off U.S. oil supplies and imposes a total embargo after Japan invades the Dutch Indies, leading to the Japanese surprise attack on U.S. Navy vessels and shore installations at Hawaii's Pearl Harbor Dec. 7, 1941.

The U.S. Senate wins a battle with the president for control of foreign policy; President Wilson suffers a stroke while traveling by train to promote the League of Nations.

In 1921, the post-war arms race is limited by the world's first major disarmament conference; U.S. Gen. Billy Mitchell demonstrates air power's potential by bombing obsolete battleships in the Chesapeake Bay.

Contrasting the styles of FDR and Hitler to show how individual charisma and technological changes can change history.

The traumatic Great Depression shatters U.S. self-confidence and paralyzes foreign policy, leading to further isolationism while dictators rise to power abroad.

Fascist Italy, led by dictator Benito Mussolini, dreams of empire and wages the brutal Second Italo-Ethiopian War from 1935 to 1937, an episode that helps pave the way for World War II.

The close personal friendship between U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill has a profound effect on the history of the Western world; lend-lease allows the U.S. to remain neutral and arm Britain.

U.S. relations with the Soviet Union are mistrustful and hostile, planting the seeds of the post-World War II Cold War; the FDR administration officially recognizes the USSR in the first détente in 1933.

Adolf Hitler triggers World War II by assuming that Britain would not defend Poland; as Nazi Germany sweeps across Europe, U.S. public opinion wavers between maintaining neutrality or helping Britain.

The Spanish Civil was becomes an ideological microcosm of conflict with Mussolini and Hitler aiding Franco's fascists while the Soviet Union supports the Republican government.

By mid-1941, Roosevelt enforced a total embargo, freezing all assets originating in Japan; in the face of this economic pressure, the Japanese government decided to force the United States into war.

Hitler and Roosevelt both appreciate the value of mass communications and use radio to reach the public.