It was a moment that would bring marked and perhaps irreversible changes in many countries, including Australia.
"December 7th, 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." United States president Franklin Roosevelt was not wrong.
Until the attacks of September the 11th, 2011, Pearl Harbour was the most traumatic event in the country's collective memory.
More than 2,000 Americans were killed in the attack at Pearl Harbour, and nearly that many more were wounded.
As well, almost 200 US planes were destroyed, and four naval battleships, among other assets, were sunk.
For those people who were there and survived, and are gathered back at Pearl Harbour 75 years later, the memories remain vivid.
"We were ... the fireball got us all. We got ahold of a sailor on board the vessel, and he throwed us a heaving line, which is a heavy line with a weight on it. And we tied -- he tied -- the heavier line on it, and we pulled that across and proceeded to go hand over hand across to the vessel, about 70 or 80 feet. I don't know how I made it, but I'm here."
The effects were long-lasting and extended far beyond the United States and Japan.
University of Sydney historian Richard Waterhouse, who specialises in Australian history, says Australians at the time viewed it through a very different perspective.
"The news was in the afternoon papers of December the 8th, and certainly in the morning papers of December the 9th -- all on the front pages, of course. It was also on the radio on December the 8th. What is really interesting about all those headlines -- and I've read the headlines of all of the major Australian papers -- is that the emphasis is not so much on Pearl Harbour, but on the simultaneous Japanese invasion of Malaya."
Professor Waterhouse says the simultaneous Japanese threats on the United States and Australia made Australia turn more to the United States as a military partner.
It is a relationship that continues to this day.
Professor Waterhouse says the Pearl Harbour attack, and the US response, helped Australians realise what a mighty military machine Japan had assembled to their north.
And he says they also realised what the United States was capable of doing in retaliation.
"From about late December onwards, Australia increasingly began to turn to the United States, because it was realised that we could no longer rely on Great Britain. And then what was reported in the Australian press was the figures that the Americans were quoting, about how many tanks, how many aeroplanes, how many guns they were going to produce ... and it was just mind-boggling. And it was that moment that made Australians realise that this was, really, the greatest power on earth."
History shows the United States -- and Australia -- prevailed against Japan in the Pacific and associated theatres of the Second World War.
But the lingering effects of what the Pearl Harbour attack started continued long after, some of them to this day.
Professor Waterhouse says some psychological wounds took a long time to heal and economic imperatives played a big role when they did.
"The Australian servicemen were particularly bitter about it. But I do think there was a real softening from the late 1950s and through the 1960s. And, partly, it was just memory makes the sense of revenge less. But, also, Japan emerged as such an enormous trading partner."
But Professor Waterhouse says, from a social point of view, it can be argued that relations between Australia and Japan have never recovered since Pearl Harbour.
He says that is despite a remarkable amount of integration of Japan and Japanese products into Australian life, as well as more positive depictions of Japanese culture.
He says Japanese cruelty to prisoners of war, and perceived attitudes to the war since it ended, are the lingering sore points.
"The way the Japanese treated prisoners of war was particularly vile. There's no getting away from it. For example, Australian prisoners that they took on the islands off New Guinea, they tied to posts and used as bayonet practice. So, yeah, that sort of has still remained, I think, in the Australian psyche. And I think the other thing that's a bit of a problem is the Japanese have never seemed to be as apologetic or as regretful for what they did by, first of all, starting the war in the Pacific, and then by the manner in which they conducted the war, and their treatment of prisoners of war, as the Germans have been."
Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe says he will visit Pearl Harbour later this month.
His spokesman says he will not apologise for the Pearl Harbour attack.
But Mr Abe says Japan wants to bring an end to war.
"I will visit Pearl Harbour and the USS Arizona museum to pray for the war dead. Never again to repeat the devastation of war. I would like to show this strong commitment towards the future to the world."
US defence secretary Ash Carter says Mr Abe's visit to Hawaii and his scheduled meeting there with President Barack Obama is a great sign of his commitment to reconciliation and to peace.
