General Order #1 issued by General Douglas Macarthur, Supreme Commander of Allied Forces during World War II, established the surrender schedule of Japanese military forces in the Pacific.
President Harry Truman’s War Department was eager to get American soldiers and sailors back home after the fighting stopped but had large numbers of Japanese soldiers to process across the far reaches of the Pacific battlefield.
The fight for freedom and democracy is not over
After the Tunisians launched the “Jasmine Revolution,” Egypt became the second domino that collapsed. The moment protesters at Cairo’s Tahrir Square heard that Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak had tendered his resignation, they cheered excitedly: “Egypt is free!”
This revolution born out of street protests reaches beyond ethnicity, region, culture and religion, making it clear that that the pursuit of freedom and the will to oppose dictatorship are not exclusive to Western countries. They are truly universal values shared by all human beings.
