Distinct years the archive depicts, against Henry Stimson’s lifetime (1867 – 1950) — 9.6% of it. 2 further depicted years fall outside it and are not counted.
A thread follows one event or historical theme across the archive, wherever and whenever it appears. Pick a tab to read one; they are in the order they are filed on the timeline. Pulling a thread opens up a narrowed timeline view filtered to every year that thread touches.
The surprise strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy against the American naval base of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Intended to be a decisive blow that would cripple the American Pacific Fleet in anticipation of war with the United States, the strike left over 2,400 Americans dead and several capital ships, notably four American battleships, sunk. However, the absence of American aircraft carriers from port on the day of the attack left the fleet in better overall shape afterwards than Japanese planners had hoped.
The secret World War II project to create the world's first nuclear weapons. After years of development and billions of dollars spent, the project culminated in 1945 with the Trinity Test detonation conducted in the New Mexico desert on July 16, 1945 and the Atomic Bombings of Japan the following month.
