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On December 7, 1941, as World War II was raging on in Europe, the Imperial Japanese Navy led a surprise military strike against the American naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Commencing at 7:48 a.m. Hawaiian Time, the attack was carried out by 353 Japanese fighter planes, bombers and torpedo planes in two waves, launching from six aircraft carriers. All eight U.S. Navy battleships stationed at the base were damaged, with four sunk. All but Arizona, which exploded beyond repair after being hit by four armour-piercing bombs, were later raised and six were returned to service for the remainder of the war. The Japanese also sank or damaged three cruisers, three destroyers, an anti-aircraft training ship and one minelayer. In addition, 188 U.S. aircraft were destroyed, 2,430 Americans were killed and 1,178 others were wounded. The attack on Pearl Harbor came as a profound shock to the American people and led President Franklin D. Roosevelt to declare war on Japan on December 8. Three day...

The most attractive man who has ever lived, otherwise known as Gary Cooper , was born Frank James Cooper, in Helena, Montana on May 7, 1901. He was the youngest of two sons of English immigrants Alice (née Brazier), a homemaker, and Charles Henry Cooper, a prominent lawyer, rancher and eventually a Montana Supreme Court justice.   Wanting her sons to have an English education, Alice enrolled Frank and his brother Arthur in Dunstable Grammar School in Berdfordshire, their father's birthplace, where they where educated from 1910 to 1912. At Dunstable, Frank studied Latin and French, in addition to taking several courses in English history. While he readily accepted the school's «conservative political beliefs and code of dutiful self-sacrifice as well as it admirable emphasis on discipline, loyalty, patriotism, honor and pluck,» Frank never adjusted to its formal uniforms and constricted landscape.   I didn't like England, particularly, although I did admire the extraordi...