After the bombing of __________ the US were afraid of a Japanese invasion.

• A. Pearl Harbor
• B. Hiroshima
• C. Nagasaki
• D. Tokyo

Answer: (A)

The event being tested is the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, a major U.S. naval base in Hawaii. When Japan struck Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, it demonstrated that distant, well-defended targets could be hit at will and that the United States could be drawn into a protracted war in the Pacific. That shock made Americans fear that Hawaii itself could be invaded and, in a worst-case scenario, that the Japanese might push toward the U.S. mainland. The attack shattered the sense of security and led to rapid mobilization and strengthened coastal defenses.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki were atomic bombings of Japanese cities carried out later in the war, and Tokyo was subjected to bombing as well, but none of these events by themselves provoked the immediate fear of a Japanese invasion of U.S. territory in the way Pearl Harbor did.