Pearl Harbor Day 2011: How Radio Stations Broke The News (AUDIO)

It's been 70 years since Pearl Harbor was attacked on December 7, 1941.

The aerial attacks killed 2,042 Americans in a day that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt said would "live in infamy." That Sunday afternoon, the news shocked the nation, propelled the country into war, and changed the world as most people knew it.

To commemorate the anniversary, the Newseum in Washington, D.C. is looking at how Americans learned about the attack. On the East Coast, sports fans were listening to the New York Giants-Brooklyn Dodgers football game when the news broke. According to the website Radio Days, NBC Blue interrupted its radio broadcast of "The Great Inspector" with an emergency bulletin, but quickly returned to regular programming. CBS was just about to begin its 2:30 p.m. broadcast of "The World Today," and John Daly led the program with news of the attack.

Below, hear how radio stations broke news of the attack on Pearl Harbor and listen to FDR's declaration of war the next day.

Comments

[winstonian23]

07:52 PM on 12/11/2011

if MSNBC had been around the headline would have read "we brought this on ourselves"

[lunacougar]

03:14 PM on 12/11/2011

Just remember, alot of us grew up taught and guided by the generation who new exactly where they were when the news broke. They are all nearly all gone and we owe them and their memory a great deal.

[Warren Harrison]

11:35 AM on 12/08/2011

You are a day "Too Late", yesterday was the 70th anniversary of Pearl Harbor. Makes me wonder how we really view our country and our society anymore.

[BlueRoseofTexas]

11:20 AM on 12/09/2011

The story was posted on Dec. 7.

[Whogivesafox]

12:21 PM on 12/11/2011

Makes me wonder about Warren Harrison.

[TrollHunter365]

02:09 PM on 12/08/2011

how many brain cells would one have to lose to think these statements are rational?

[Slash14]

04:26 PM on 12/08/2011

Judging by your profile pic, I bet you do not have too many left

[headly67]

10:45 PM on 12/08/2011

You are an embarrassment to America.

If it happened under Bush he would have attacked Canada.

[Dan Crabtree]

08:55 PM on 12/07/2011

democrats of course did not want to sign a declaration of war against japan at the time..but feared the backlash would doom there party so they reluctanly agreed

[Slash14]

09:01 AM on 12/08/2011

I never heard that and I'm skeptical I think everyone was on the same page after Pearl Habor

[headly67]

10:46 PM on 12/08/2011

WRONG

[Slash14]

11:19 PM on 12/08/2011

Except for people like you who wanted us to surrender

[booktone]

05:44 PM on 12/07/2011

If Fox News had been around, the headline would've been "FDR Cheers Japanese During Attack"

[triplettam]

05:01 PM on 12/07/2011

Meanwhile, in Australia, a young Rupert Murdoch reported that Barack Obama led an attack on Hawaii to to destroy his birth certificate.