6 - President Roosevelt addresses a personal appeal for peace to Emperor .
Hirohito.
Dec. 7 - Japan raids Pearl Harbor, invades Siam, Hong Kong, Burma, North .
Borneo, the Dutch West Indies, the Philippines and Pacific Islands. Britain and .
United States declares war on Japan.
1942 May - Japanese midget submarines attack shipping in Diego Suarez harbor .
(Madagascar) and Sydney Harbor (Australia).
June - Battle of Midway - Japanese Carrier Force defeated off Midway Island .
and the invasion abandoned.
1943 Nov. - Issue of Cairo Declaration.
1944 April - U.S. forces land on Okinawa.
July - Issue of Postdam Declaration to Japan.
1945 August - Atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Russia .
declares war on Japan. Japan surrenders.
Sept. - Surrender ceremony aboard USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay.
On December 13th, a large number of refugees tried to escape from the Japanese by trying to cross the Yangtze River. They were trapped on the east bank because no transportation was available; many of them tried to swim across the river. Meanwhile, the Japanese arrived and fired at the people on the shore and in the river. A Japanese soldier reported that the next day he saw an uncountable number of dead bodies of adults and children covering the whole river. He estimated that more than 50,000 people were killed at this tragic incident of the Nanking massacre.
World War II's Holocaust.
In the next six weeks, the Japanese committed the infamous Nanking Massacre, better known as the Rape of Nanking, where an estimated 300,000 Chinese soldiers and civilians were killed, and 20,000 women were raped. .
During the Nanking Massacre, the Japanese committed a litany of atrocities against innocent civilians, including mass execution, raping, looting, and burning. It was impossible to keep a detailed account of all of these crimes, but survivor wrote documents and Japanese militarists kept diaries about these crimes.
