Pick the Next Extra History Series! "Remember Pearl Harbor... Differently, This Time" (Patreon)

It's time for our Extra History poll! Where you get to vote on what our next Extra History Series is about! Our four Patreon-suggested topics about "Remembering Pearl Harbor... Differently, This Time" are listed below.

• A Diplomatic History of Pearl Harbor - It's 1941, and Japan and the United States are headed on a collision course. But while factions on both sides consider conflict inevitable, several diplomats—and high-level figures in both Tokyo and Washington—still hope for a negotiated peace. But as militarists in Japan's power structure push for a preemptive attack, Emperor Hirohito vacillates, and FDR mulls a personal meeting with Japanese Prime Minister, messages are misconstrued and lost, cultural cues missed. And despite the State Department having cracked Japanese signals, allowing them to monitor Japan's private diplomatic communications, the Americans will not realize they're working against the clock—if a solution is not found by November 10th, a carrier force will make for Pearl Harbor.

• An Espionage History of Pearl Harbor - As the Japanese military prepared for the most audacious carrier-based attack in history, they relied heavily on spies and agents to monitor, map, and report ship positions in Pearl Harbor. A spy ring working out of the Japanese consulate in Honolulu monitored ship traffic while disguised a Filipino plantation laborers, landscape painting artists, or other undercover guises. What they didn't know was that the US State Department was reading their dispatches—with Operation "Magic" having cracked the Japanese diplomatic cypher. But the Magic program was underfunded and had no Japanese-language expert, and the relevant messages drifting in a sea of other shipping reports. Come see how espionage shaped the Pearl Harbor Attack—and if things had gone differently, might have prevented it.

• Pearl Harbor: The Aftermath - Pearl Harbor is in ruins. Honolulu firemen battle blazing gas mains, their trucks riddled with machine gun hits. The USS Arizona is on the bottom. The Oklahoma capsized. Only by running aground has the USS Nevada managed to keep itself from blocking the harbor channel. Yet the dry docks are still functioning—and they're needed immediately. This series follows the aftermath of the Pearl Harbor Attack, as a group of Navy salvage teams try to put the US Pacific Fleet back together, Pearl Harbor attempts a rescue of the Marines on Wake, and Pearl becomes the marshalling ground for the Pacific War. The impact on civilians would also be immense—Hawai'i residents would live under blackouts and food rationing, experience invasion panics, and live under martial law. Honolulu's Hotel Street, a seedy entertainment district, would become the busiest red-light district in the Pacific. And the military authorities, faced with a majority Asian population, struggled over Japanese internment policies orders that would've meant locking up a third of the population.

• Hawai'i's 442nd/100th Battalion: Go for Broke - When Pearl Harbor was bombed, some of the first people to respond were Japanese-Americans. Red Cross volunteers rushed to tend to the wounded and civilians hitched rides to the battlefield to fight fires. They were often the first in line at the recruitment station. But mere weeks later, those same men would be legally classified as "IV-C - Enemy Aliens,"  and forced to register for monitoring and possible incarceration. For the next year, Japanese-American "Nisei" (second-generation immigrants) living in Hawai'i would lobby for their own regiment, where they could prove themselves. The result was the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, a segregated regiment of Hawaiian-born Japanese-Americans eager to prove their loyalty beyond doubt. Later merged with a similar regiment recruited from the mainland, the 100th Battalion, the first test of the 442nd/100th would not be against the enemy, but in merging their visions of the United States, as the more positive and optimistic soldiers born in Hawai'i—where internment was more targeted—clashed with the more jaded outlook of Californian soldiers whose families were locked in camps. Deployed to France and later northern Italy, the 442nd/100th would build bonds fighting alongside the African-American 92nd Infantry Division, and become legendary for its actions in the Vosages Mountains, where it rescued the "lost battalion," a Texas National Guard Unit encircled by 6,000 Germans. It would go on to become the most decorated American unit of its size and length of service—awarded 4,000 Purple Hearts, 4,000 Bronze Stars, 560 Silver Stars, 21 Medals of Honor, and seven Presidential Unit Citations. It also fostered a generation of Japanese-American leaders that would go on to shape the country's history.

Cast your vote(s) below and let us know what series you would like us to air on Extra History!

Current Schedule:

Eleanor of Aquitaine --> Easter Rising --> Your Vote!

***Friendly reminder: The poll will end at 5:00 PM PT on Friday, June 24th. You can vote for as many choices as you want! This style of voting helps us see what people are most interested in without having to make tough decisions between a couple of close favorites. ***