Which phrase did President Franklin D. Roosevelt use to describe the day after the Pearl Harbor attack?

Franklin D. Roosevelt called December 7, 1941, “a date which will live in infamy” in his address to Congress.

Roosevelt delivered the speech on December 8, the day after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor and other American and Allied positions in the Pacific. He told Congress that the United States had been suddenly and deliberately attacked and requested a declaration of war against Japan.

The speech lasted only a few minutes but became one of the most famous presidential addresses in U.S. history. Congress approved the declaration almost immediately, with a single dissenting vote in the House of Representatives.

The commonly quoted wording is sometimes shortened to “a day of infamy.” Roosevelt’s actual phrase was “a date which will live in infamy,” referring specifically to December 7.