President Roosevelt's Quarantine Speech

America entered World War II in 1941, after the devastating attack on Pearl Harbor in December. This event served as the catalyst for the United States’ official involvement in the conflict, but many in the nation had already been calling for a declaration of war against Germany and Japan. This showed that the American people was ready for a great change, specifically, one from an isolationist nation to a world leader. During the war, every action was taken to turn America into a world power, including speeches by the President, propaganda, and drastic military actions. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was a highly effective and charismatic leader who was capable of influencing the opinions of the American people with his speeches. Before
He stated that, “When an epidemic of physical disease starts to spread, the community approves and joins in a quarantine of the patients in order to protect the health of the community…” The president, and those listening to the speech, thought this was an apt analogy, and it became a central idea leading up to America’s involvement in World War II. In the 1941 State of the Union Address, 11 months before America’s declaration of war against Japan, he outlined his idea for Four Freedoms that were essential to secure for the entire world. The first two were freedom of speech and freedom of worship, which, while defended by the
Most obvious is the creation and subsequent detonation of the nuclear bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. America was the first nation in the world to create these weapons, through the four year operation known as the Manhattan Project. The fact that the government authorized the use of these bombs speaks volumes of the direction America was taking in world politics. In the past, the United States would not have even begun building something of that nature, but the desire to become a world power fueled the development of the nuclear bomb. Another major military action that points to America’s transition to a world power is the invasion of Normandy, more commonly known as D-Day. This is the largest seaborne invasion in world history, and one that America played an integral part in. Along with the United Kingdom, Canada, what was left of the French armed forces, and several other nations, the United States eventually took northwestern Europe back from Nazi forces. This collaboration with some of the largest countries in the world solidified America’s status as a world