INTERNATIONAL: "December 7, 1941 - a date which will live in infamy - the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.As commander-in-chief of the Army and Navy I have directed that all measures be taken for our defense. But always will our whole nation remember the character of the onslaught against us." These were the famous lines of U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt addressing joint session of congress."

The United States commemorates the 80th anniversary of the attack on the U.S. naval base in Pearl Harbor on Tuesday. The attack on the U.S. naval base in Hawaii on 7 December 1941, shook a country that had been so focused on the war in Europe that it had lost sight of the threat posed by Japan, according to historians.

The attack, has launched to destroy the U.S. Pacific fleet and with the aim of keeping the United States out of the war, took some 2,390 American lives. Japanese forces have attacked Pearl Harbor with torpedo planes, bombers and fighter planes on the morning of 7 December 1941, bombing the U.S. fleet moored there in the hope of destroying U.S. power in the Pacific.

The attack has led to the United States entering World War II and the eventual defeat of Japan in August 1945, days after U.S. atomic bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki have claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of civilians.