December 1, 1941

1941World War II: Emperor Hirohito of Japan gives his tacit approval to the decision of the imperial council to initiate war against the United States.^[†]

Hirohito , posthumously honored as Emperor Shōwa , was the 124th emperor of Japan according to the traditional order of succession, reigning from 25 December 1926 until his death in 1989. He remains the longest-reigning emperor in Japanese history and one of the longest-reigning monarchs in the world. As emperor during the Shōwa era, Hirohito presided over Japan's rise in militarism, its imperial expansion in Asia, the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Second World War, as well as the nation's postwar economic miracle.

1941World War II: Fiorello La Guardia, Mayor of New York City and Director of the Office of Civilian Defense, signs Administrative Order 9, creating the Civil Air Patrol.^[†]

Fiorello Henry La Guardia was an American attorney and politician who represented New York in the U.S. House of Representatives and served as the 99th mayor of New York City from 1934 to 1946. He was known for his irascible, energetic, and charismatic personality and diminutive, rotund stature. A member of the Republican Party, La Guardia was frequently cross-endorsed by parties other than his own, especially parties on the left under New York's electoral fusion laws. A panel of 69 scholars in 1993 ranked him as the best big-city mayor in American history.