Discover Hawaii's creepiest urban legends and ghost stories, from the terrifying Night Marchers to Pele’s Curse. Explore chilling tales of restless spirits and haunted sites across the islands.
From human sacrifices to ghostly apparitions, the Kona Lagoon Hotel's dark history lives on. Learn why it was abandoned and the spirits said to haunt it.
On the morning of December 7, 1941, the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service conducted a surprise attack against the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Hawaii. The island chain was annexed as a territory of the United States in 1900 during the nationalistic fervor of the Spanish-American War, but even though it was a major naval center for the US, it wasn't a state yet. In the attack, almost 2,400 Americans were killed and 1,000 were wounded. The Japanese damaged or destroyed over 20 American naval vessels, including eight battleships, and over 300 airplanes. The attack was carried out in two waves. The first wave was detected by radar at 7:55 AM, but it was mistaken for an expected group of American planes. The bombing started a minute later. The second wave was more devastating than the first. It was launched at 8:40 AM. The USS Arizona was hit four times by a bomber and eventually sank, with a loss of 1,177 officers and crewmen. Pearl Harbor was the deadliest attack on American territory up to that point. President Franklin D. Roosevelt asked Congress to declare war on Japan in his famous "Infamy Speech” the very next day and led to the United States’ entry into the Second World War.