Low WWII awareness in Japan, Egyptian mummy unearthed, JFK diary for sale, FDR's ghostwriter, 8,000-year-old art vandalized.
Many Japanese People Don’t Know That Their Country Fought The U.S. In WWII, Japanese Politician Claims
National Archives and Records Administration/Wikimedia CommonsThe USS Arizona following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on December 7, 1941.
Following Japan’ 1941 attack on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor, the two countries spent the next four years mired in some of the fiercest combat of World War II. Some seven decades later, one Japanese politician recently claimed, many Japanese people don’t seem to realize that any of that indeed happened.
Speaking at a panel on the future of Japan at the Center for Strategic Initiatives and Studies in Washington, D.C. on Monday, former Osaka governor Toru Hashimoto stated that many Japanese children and adults don’t know that their country was once America’s enemy, U.S. News & World Report writes.
“The generation of myself – and some of you might not be able to believe this – but some people in my generation don’t even know that the U.S. and Japan have been engaged in a war, and [have] been enemies in the past,” Hashimoto said.
According to Hashimoto, many surprised Japanese students will ask, “‘Did the U.S. and Japan really [fight] against each in the war?'”
However, Hashimoto doesn’t seem to have marshaled any hard evidence to back up his claim. Likewise, one Pew poll from 2015 certainly suggests that there is plenty of World War II awareness in present-day Japan.
But whatever lack of awareness remains — or at least perceived lack of awareness on the part of people like Hashimoto — perhaps it’s caused simply by the longstanding close relations between the U.S. and Japan since World War II, relations that may get “even closer” under Trump.
Ancient, Untouched Egyptian Tomb Just Uncovered Along With Intact Mummy
Ahram Online Archaeologists examine the recent discovery.
A team of archaeologists has just discovered an ancient royal Egyptian tomb that has remained remarkably untouched by time.
Alejandro Jiménez-Serrano of the University of Jaen told Ahram Online that his team found a well-preserved mummy inside a 3,800-year-old tomb, as well as a stunning polychrome cartonnage, or the face mask and painted collar associated with Egyptian mummy coverings. The mummy rests in two coffins — an inner and an outer coffin — made out of cedar.
See what else they found inside the tomb here.
JFK’s Candid Thoughts On Hitler, Russia, The UN Revealed In Up-For-Sale Diary
John F. Kennedy LibraryJohn F. Kennedy in 1944, a year before the diary was written.
Before John F. Kennedy was the 35th President of the United States and even before he was a Congressman, he was a newspaper writer.
It was 1945 and Kennedy, then 28 years old, was assigned to report in Europe as the continent shakily emerged from World War II. Traveling alongside Winton Churchill and other world leaders, he observed the destruction, reflected on Hitler’s influence and recorded his thoughts in a 61-page diary.
Tellingly prescient and somewhat controversial, the book is going to be auctioned off in April and is set to fetch at least $200,000.
Get a taste of what he wrote here.
