February 19, 1942Primary sourceWell documented
Japanese American Incarceration
On the timeline · around February 19, 1942 ·
What happened
In the panic after Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which led to the forced removal and incarceration of some 120,000 people of Japanese descent — two-thirds of them U.S. citizens — in remote camps for the duration of the war, without charge or trial.
Why it matters
The incarceration is remembered as one of the gravest civil-liberties failures in American history. In 1988 the U.S. government formally apologized and paid reparations, acknowledging it had been driven by 'race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership.'