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More than three-quarters of a century have passed since the "day that will live in infamy." Just before eight o'clock in the morning on December 7, 1941, a Japanese force made up of 350-plus planes, supported by submarines, cruisers, destroyers, and battleships, attacked Pearl Harbor, a U.S. naval station on Oahu, Hawaii.

In total, 2,403 people died in the attack on Pearl Harbor. Japan destroyed 19 American ships, including the USS Arizona, which remains underwater. You know what came next. The aftermath of the attack plunged the country into World War II, making it, as The New York Times reported the next morning, "... the first time in its history, the United States finds itself at war against powers in both the Atlantic and the Pacific."

But even now, 77 years later, there's probably a lot you don't know about Pearl Harbor. We look at five lesser-known facts about one December day that changed the course of history.

The "Sleeping Dragon" Almost Stayed Asleep

It's a day taught in every history book, and arguably one of the most transformative days in American history-next to Independence Day and 9/11. But according to historian and author of Pearl Harbor: From Infamy to Greatness, Craig Nelson, it should never have happened in the first place. Speaking with Popular Mechanics, Nelson says failed negotiations on both sides of the table failed to prevent war.

Erroneously, America pigeonholed Japan into a similar fascist system like Nazi Germany then ravaging Europe. "They thought the Japanese were just like the Nazis, in that they were unified behind a philosophy, a madman dictator, and the unstoppable force of fascism," says Nelson. "They weren't ... the Japanese government was so chaotic that it changed hands 15 times in 14 years." Because of this constant turnover, there were moments in the lead-up to war that the United States could have negotiated a peace with an incoming government, most notably with Japan's last civilian prime minister Fumimaro Konoe. America's misunderstanding of Japan's political turmoil eventually led to war.

Unfortunately, things on the other side of the Pacific weren't much better. Not everyone was in agreement about entering into war with the United States, including the admiral who planned the Pearl Harbor attack Isoroku Yamamoto, who had actually studied at Harvard. "He ... warned his military superiors that such an attack would awaken a giant sleeping dragon that Japan could not hope to materially defeat," wrote Keith Huxen, senior director of research and history at the National World War II Museum in New Orleans, to Popular Mechanics, "However, he was ignored."

While Admiral Yamamoto did lead the attack as ordered, he turned out to be right about waking up America from its global slumber and forever changing the course of history.

One Japanese Communications Officer Changed the World Forever

In the run-up to World War II, wireless telegraphy was the most effective and efficient way for far-away nations to communicate. This was certainly the case between the United States and Japan, who were talking via cable right up to the attack. On December 6, President Roosevelt sent a cable to his Japanese counterpart Emperor Shōwa in hopes of "dispelling the dark clouds" by appealing to the two countries' long-standing peace and friendship. But Major Morio Tomura, an army officer stationed at the Tokyo's cable office, delayed the conciliatory cable arriving for the Imperial Palace by ten hours because he believed that war was Japan's destiny.

When the cable finally arrived, Japan had already composed a 14-part cable announcing the end of negotiations that was to be sent back to America with the intention of delivering it 30 minutes before the strike. Although it might sound weird in modern warfare, it's part of the samurai/bushido honor code to notify someone before attacking them.

However, the same Major Tomura delayed the cable yet again and it didn't arrive until nearly two hours after the attack. "The entire day of infamy," says Nelson, "you can almost say was caused by this one character."

The Mysterious New Yorker Ad That May Have Been a Warning

On November 22, 15 days before the strike at Pearl Harbor, several odd advertisements showed up in New Yorker Magazine for a dice game called "The Deadly Double." The initial ad features a headline reading "Achtung, Warning, Alerte!" (German for "Attention, Warning, Alert") with an illustrated image of people in an underground bunker enjoying the dice game.

Underneath, further copy says, "We hope you'll never have to spend a long winter's night in an air-raid shelter, but we were just thinking ... it's only common sense to be prepared." It then explains all the things one will need, like canned goods, blankets, cigarettes and "Chicago's favorite game ... (in bold, stylized letters) The Deadly Double." Throughout the magazine, the other advertisements refer back to this main one, however one featured a close-up pair of dice with the numbers 12 and 7 showing.

For some, these extraordinarily bizarre ads were actually a warning about Pearl Harbor. According to Nelson's book, investigations into the matter led to dead-ends since the ad was delivered in person to the office and the fee paid in cash. There are conflicting reports that the company mentioned (the Monarch Publishing Company out of New York) and its game ever even existed. Either way, Nelson thinks the ads were in poor taste and definitely creepy, but likely unrelated to the attack.

The Lingering Specter of Pearl Harbor

The 2,403 people who perished in Pearl Harbor were not the only victims. Many survivors endured lingering PTSD, a psychological disorder that often went undiagnosed during this time. According to a 1989 study, 65 percent of Pearl Harbor survivors still suffered from PTSD flashbacks decades after the attack. In addition, nearly a quarter reported that certain stimuli (like engine noises) startled them and caused flashbacks.

No one illustrates the sadness post-Pearl Harbor PTSD more than Sterling Cale. While docked when the bombs started dropping, he immediately dived in the water to save dozens of his fellow sailors. The USS Arizona blew up during this daring rescue. After the attack, since Cale appeared visibly unscathed, he was given the unenviable job of collecting dead bodies from the ships. As Nelson's book mentions, often he wasn't collecting bodies-so much as dust.

Flash forward about six years later and Cale is at a family picnic on the beach when a wave unexpectedly pulls his two-year-old son out to sea. Cale jumps into the water to save his child, only to freeze and go into shock. Luckily, the family's dog miraculously pulled the little boy to safety, but Cale's trauma prevents him from ever getting near a shoreline again.

The USS Arizona is Still Leaking Fuel

On December 6, the USS Arizona took on a full load of 1.5 million gallons of fuel in preparation for a January mainland trip. The next day at about 8:10 a.m., a Japanese bomber dropped its 1,700-pound payload onto the ship, igniting the fuel. A horrific explosion lifted the 33,000-ton ship out of the water and ripped it in half. This explosion, and subsequent fires (which burned for 2-1/2 days afterwards), killed 1,177 sailors and marines, or about 80 percent of the crew on board.

Since that day, the USS Arizona continues to leak oil into the harbor at an estimated 2 to 9 quarts each day. According to most estimates, there's nearly half a million gallons of thick, bunker C fuel oil still trapped in the rusting ship. Easily observed by visitors, some call the oil slick the "tears of the Arizona" or "black tears." However, various environmental studies have concluded that a "catastrophic" release of the fuel oil is inevitable, but scientists are not sure of when this could happen.

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5 Things You Didn't Know About Pearl Harbor

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More than three-quarters of a century have passed since the "day that will live in infamy." Just before eight o'clock in the morning on December 7, 1941, a Japanese force made up of 350-plus planes, supported by submarines, cruisers, destroyers, and battleships, attacked Pearl Harbor, a U.S. naval station on Oahu, Hawaii.

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On the morning of December 7, 1941, Japan launched a sneak attack on the U.S. Pacific Fleet's base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, as part of a plan to eliminate any potential challenge to Japanese conquests in Asia. The attack compelled the United States to enter World War II as a combatant, and to wage a costly, bloody struggle to defeat the Japanese empire.

The events set in motion by the attack also led to the United States becoming a global superpower. As Peter Harris, an assistant professor of political science at Colorado State University, wrote in 2017, the attack dramatically altered U.S. foreign relations, "sidelining isolationism as a powerful force in domestic politics and making overseas engagement the accepted norm."

Here are some key facts about the attack.

Why Japan Attacked Pearl Harbor

The Japanese plan to attack Pearl Harbor was devised by Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, a former student at Harvard University who had served as Japan's naval attaché in Washington. Yamamoto knew that the United States had far greater resources than Japan, and that his country could not win a protracted war. As Steve Twomey details in his 2016 book Countdown to Pearl Harbor: The Twelve Days to the Attack, Yamamoto believed that Japan's only chance for success was to stage a surprise assault that would knock the U.S. fleet out of action for a year or more.

Japanese forces trained for about a year to prepare for the attack. They added wooden fins to their aerial torpedoes and made other modifications, so that they could work on short runs at the 45-foot average depth of Pearl Harbor.

The Japanese Foreign Ministry wanted to present the United States with a declaration of war prior to the attack, so that they wouldn't violate international law. But they were blocked by the Japanese military, which didn't want to jeopardize the operation.

The Japanese attack force-which included six aircraft carriers and 420 planes-sailed from Hitokappu Bay in the Kurile Islands, on a 3,500 mile voyage to a staging area 230 miles off the Hawaiian island of Oahu. According to Twomey, the Japanese sailed without radar or reconnaissance planes overhead, in an effort to avoid detection.

The U.S. Missed Signs of Japan's Preparations

U.S. officials overlooked Japanese forces' preparations for war, and missed warning signs of the impending attack, including an intercepted December 6 Japanese message asking about berthing positions at Pearl Harbor, and a radar sighting of a large group of airplanes headed toward Oahu on the morning of December 7.

The first wave of the attack included 180 Japanese aircraft, including torpedo planes, high-level bombers, dive bombers and fighters. They were followed by a second wave of similar size, but with more dive bombers and no torpedo planes.

Japanese forces started the attack shortly before 8 a.m. Hawaiian time, when the initial wave of fighters struck, according to U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command.

According to a 2016 article by retired U.S. Navy Commander Alan D. Zimm, Japanese Captain Mitsuo Fuchida, who led the aerial attack on Pearl Harbor, made a critical mistake by firing two flares, which signaled to his aviators that they had not caught the Americans by surprise. As a result, they used more cautious tactics and inflicted far less damage than they might have.

The Japanese attack lasted nearly two hours.

The U.S.S. Arizona Was Struck by Several Bombs

According to Fuchida's account of the attack, the radio code indicating a successful attack was "Tora, tora tora." The word "tora" means tiger in Japanese. It may have been inspired by a Japanese saying, "A tiger goes out two thousand miles and returns without fail."

Japanese torpedo bombers flew just 50 feet above the water as they fired at the U.S. ships in the harbor, while other planes strafed the decks with bullets and dropped bombs.

The U.S.S. Arizona, which was moored next to a repair ship when the attack began, was struck by several Japanese bombs and exploded in flames as it sank. More than 1,100 service members were killed, including Rear Admiral Isaac C. Kidd and the ship's commanding officer, Captain Franklin Van Valkenburgh.

Despite Surprise, U.S. Forces Fought Back Hard

Though caught off guard, U.S. service members fought back hard, and managed to fire more than 284,000 rounds of ammunition at the Japanese attackers. One of the most outstanding heroes was Cook Third Class Doris "Dorie" Miller, who took over a 50-caliber Browning anti-aircraft machine gun on the U.S.S. West Virginia, and despite his inexperience with the weapon, managed to shoot down between four and six Japanese planes before being ordered to abandon ship. He later became the first African-American to receive the Navy Cross. Miller was killed in action in 1943.

The attack killed 2,403 service members and wounded 1,178 more, and sank or destroyed six U.S. ships,. They also destroyed 169 U.S. Navy and Army Air Corps planes.

The Japanese losses included 29 aircraft, in addition to five midget submarines, and 129 attackers were killed and one taken prisoner.

The Japanese opted not to launch a third wave of aircraft against Pearl Harbor, and instead turned around and headed back across the ocean, in part because their fuel was running low.

The attack on Pearl Harbor was followed the next day by Japanese air attacks on U.S. bases in the Philippines, Guam and Wake Island.

Japan's Attack Failed to Disarm the U.S. Fleet

Despite inflicting heavy casualties, the Japanese attackers failed to achieve their objective of disabling the U.S. fleet. No U.S. aircraft carriers were at Pearl Harbor that day, and the Japanese were unable to destroy vital infrastructure such as repair shops and fuel tanks.

In Washington, President Franklin D. Roosevelt learned of the attack during lunch, when he received a phone call from Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox.

Yamamoto, the architect of the attack, didn't survive to see Japan's eventual defeat. He was killed in 1943, when American fighters shot down his plane over the Solomon Islands.

HISTORY Vault: Pearl Harbor: 24 Hours After

Fact Check

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Pearl Harbor: Photos and Facts from the Infamous WWII Attack | HISTORY

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The surprise Japanese assault inflicted heavy losses but failed to strike a decisive blow.

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Japan and the Path to War

The attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise, but Japan and the United States had been edging toward war for decades.

The United States was particularly unhappy with Japan's increasingly belligerent attitude toward China. The Japanese government believed that the only way to solve its economic and demographic problems was to expand into its neighbor's territory and take over its import market.

To this end, Japan declared war on China in 1937, resulting in the Nanking Massacre and other atrocities.

American officials responded to this aggression with a battery of economic sanctions and trade embargoes. They reasoned that without access to money and goods, and especially essential supplies like oil, Japan would have to rein in its expansionism.

Instead, the sanctions made the Japanese more determined to stand their ground. During months of negotiations between Tokyo and Washington, D.C., neither side would budge. It seemed that war was all but inevitable.

Where Is Pearl Harbor?

Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, is located near the center of the Pacific Ocean, roughly 2,000 miles from the U.S. mainland and about 4,000 miles from Japan. No one believed that the Japanese would start a war with an attack on the distant islands of Hawaii.

Additionally, American intelligence officials were confident that any Japanese attack would take place in one of the (relatively) nearby European colonies in the South Pacific: the Dutch East Indies, Singapore or Indochina.

Because American military leaders were not expecting an attack so close to home, the naval facilities at Pearl Harbor were relatively undefended. Almost the entire Pacific Fleet was moored around Ford Island in the harbor, and hundreds of airplanes were squeezed onto adjacent airfields.

To the Japanese, Pearl Harbor was an irresistibly easy target.

USS Arizona

The Japanese plan was simple: Destroy the Pacific Fleet. That way, the Americans would not be able to fight back as Japan's armed forces spread across the South Pacific. On December 7, after months of planning and practice, the Japanese launched their attack.

At about 8 a.m., Japanese planes filled the sky over Pearl Harbor. Bombs and bullets rained onto the vessels moored below. At 8:10, a 1,800-pound bomb smashed through the deck of the battleship USS Arizona and landed in her forward ammunition magazine. The ship exploded and sank with more than 1,000 men trapped inside.

Next, torpedoes pierced the shell of the battleship USS Oklahoma. With 400 sailors aboard, the Oklahoma lost her balance, rolled onto her side and slipped underwater.

Less than two hours later, the surprise attack was over, and every battleship in Pearl Harbor- USS Arizona, USS Oklahoma, USS California, USS West Virginia, USS Utah, USS Maryland, USS Pennsylvania, USS Tennessee and USS Nevada-had sustained significant damage. (All but USS Arizona and USS Utah were eventually salvaged and repaired.)

Impact of the Pearl Harbor Attack

In all, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor crippled or destroyed nearly 20 American ships and more than 300 airplanes. Dry docks and airfields were likewise destroyed. Most importantly, more than 2,000 people died.

But the Japanese had failed to cripple the Pacific Fleet. By the 1940s, battleships were no longer the most important naval vessel: Aircraft carriers were, and as it happened, all of the Pacific Fleet's carriers were away from the base on December 7. (Some had returned to the mainland and others were delivering planes to troops on Midway and Wake Islands.)

Moreover, the Pearl Harbor assault had left the base's most vital onshore facilities-oil storage depots, repair shops, shipyards and submarine docks-intact. As a result, the U.S. Navy was able to rebound relatively quickly from the attack.

How Many People Died in Pearl Harbor?

The attack on Pearl Harbor killed 2,403 U.S. personnel, including sailors, soldiers and civilians. Additionally, 1,178 people were wounded. 129 Japanese soldiers were killed.

Half of the dead at Pearl Harbor were on the USS Arizona. Today the sunken battleship serves as a memorial to all Americans who died in the attack.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt addressed a joint session of the U.S. Congress on December 8, the day after the crushing attack on Pearl Harbor.

"Yesterday, 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."

He went on to say, "No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory. I believe I interpret the will of the Congress and of the people when I assert that we will not only defend ourselves to the uttermost, but will make very certain that this form of treachery shall never endanger us again."

America Enters World War II

After the Pearl Harbor attack, and for the first time during years of discussion and debate, the American people were united in their determination to go to war.

The Japanese had wanted to goad the United States into an agreement to lift the economic sanctions against them; instead, they had pushed their adversary into a global conflict that ultimately resulted in Japan's first occupation by a foreign power.

Did you know? The single vote against Congress's declaration of war against Japan came from Representative Jeannette Rankin of Montana. Rankin was a pacifist who had also voted against the American entrance into World War I. "As a woman," she said, "I can't go to war, and I refuse to send anyone else."

On December 8, Congress approved Roosevelt's declaration of war on Japan. Three days later, Japan's allies Germany and Italy declared war against the United States.

For the second time, Congress reciprocated, declaring war on the European powers. More than two years after the start of World War II, the United States had entered the conflict.

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Pearl Harbor is a U.S. naval base near Honolulu, Hawaii, that was the scene of a devastating surprise attack by Japanese forces on December 7, 1941. The day after the attack, President Franklin D. Roosevelt asked Congress to declare war on Japan.