Differences And Similarities Between Pearl Harbor And 9/11

The attack of Pearl Harbor and the event of 9/11 both have a lot in common, but also had many opposites. 9/11 was a highjacking mission that took place on 4 different planes. While Pearl Harbor was a naval base in Hawaii that was bombed by Japan, and this event was the cause of America joining WW2. Both events killed and injured many many people, and changed Americans forever.

After the attack on Pearl Harbor had happened, people were in shock that something like this had happened. FDR decided to go into war less than an hour after the attack occurred. He most likely decided this because he didn’t know what would happen next if they didn’t react quickly. Some Americans thought that this was a good idea and was good for the country, others thought it was bad and were worried and scared that they would be drafted into the war. Whenith 9/11, americans were terrified and scared and thought it was an accident and that it was not intentional. Then the second one occurred and they knew it wasn’t a mistake, this is when Americans became very very worried. They thought that if

they didn’t go to war that something like this would happen again and they would be put in more danger. After these attacks, we as Americans realized that bad things like this really do happen and that there could have been people they knew who died in the either attack or that could have been seriously injured.
Bush and FDR reacted and responded to the problem differently, but their reactions when they heard what had happened were similar.

Bush was reading to a group of third graders when he got the news of what happened. You can see in pictures and videos that he looked like he couldn’t believe what they had just told him. He acted calm and like nothing had happened since he had been reading to a group of kids, and he knew if he had freaked out they all would have freaked out to. But on the inside his heart was beating and he was freaking out. Bush didn’t declare war immediately after the attack like FDR had done. When FDR heard what happened, and had a meeting with congress. 30 minutes after the event he made an announcement stating that they were now in war with the Empire of Japan. Even though they didn’t respond the same way, they both were completely shocked and couldn’t believe what they had

heard.
The media reacted somewhat differently but also alike. After Pearl Harbor, the U.S. put out propaganda posters about wanting people to join the war. People were angry at Japan for causing such damage, worried about loved ones, and sad that all this had happened. This was the way both time periods reacted to the events, but instead of being mad at Japan after 9/11, they were mad at the hijackers and the countries they came from. After 9/11 and media was going crazy about what exactly happened, and if people were ok, and so much more. News reporters were all over the scenes and were trying to get a good story about what happened. The attacks were all reports wrote about for weeks and weeks, talking about updates, how many people were affected and anything they could write about that had to do with the whole subject.
Overall, both events had many similarities and differences. They both affected so many people and both caused so much damage. The events changed America and how we saw things such as war. We learned from these two events how much of an impact things like these have on our country. Pearl harbor changed everyone's point of view on war and so did the event of 9/11. I learned that even though the events may be somewhat similar, people can react completely different. As an example, FDR and Bush reacted similar to the event but chose to do different responses to the attacks. I think that both events changed us as a whole and made us open our eyes to war and many other things.