Japanese Americans Interned: Rights Stripped by Fear
Executive Order 9066 authorized military commanders to exclude all people of Japanese ancestry from the West Coast, displacing over 110,000 individuals into interior camps. This action stripped sixty-two percent of those incarcerated—U.S. citizens themselves—of their liberty based on racism rather than genuine military threat. The Supreme Court later upheld these exclusion orders in *Korematsu v. United States*, establishing a legal precedent that ignored the due process violations suffered by American citizens.
February 19, 1942
84 years ago
Key Figures & Places
What Else Happened on February 19
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Constantius II ordered every pagan temple in the Roman Empire shut in 356. Not destroyed — closed. The difference mattered. Priests couldn't perform sacrifices.…
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Boniface III waited eight months to become pope. The longest gap between popes in the church's first thousand years. He needed approval from Constantinople — th…
Sigismund III became the only person to rule both Sweden and Poland simultaneously. He'd inherited Poland through his mother in 1587, then Sweden through his fa…
Huaynaputina erupted with such force in 1600 that it ejected enough ash to bury nearby villages and trigger a global volcanic winter. The resulting drop in temp…
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