HYDE PARK — Anyone with access to the Internet can now find out what President Franklin D. Roosevelt was doing, and where he was, when he found out about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.That information and more is available on the website from the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library in Hyde Park.On the occasion of today’s 70th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Pare Lorentz Center at the FDR library is unveiling a new online database of Roosevelt’s daily schedule: “Franklin D. Roosevelt Day by Day.”The “Day by Day” interactive chronology documents FDR’s daily activities as president from March 1933 to April 1945.“We are very excited to announce the completion of this extensive digitization project,” Roosevelt library Acting Director Lynn Bassanese said. “Special thanks to former Roosevelt Library Director Verne Newton, whose vision and determination started the ‘Day by Day’ project and helped secure the original funding for the Pare Lorentz Center, as well as to all of the Roosevelt library’s staff, volunteers and summer interns, who worked so hard to digitize and prepare these materials for our online audiences.”

Those who click on the “Day by Day” link on the FDR library home page can access Roosevelt’s daily calendar for Dec. 7, 1941, and a corresponding timeline. Users can find out that FDR was having lunch in the White House study with Harry Hopkins, a close friend and aide, when at 1:40 p.m. he received a phone call from Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox notifying him of the attack on Pearl Harbor.Those viewing the timeline will learn that it was Eleanor Roosevelt, the first lady, who was the first public figure to speak to the nation later that day about the attack on Pearl Harbor. She was scheduled that Sunday evening to give her regular radio broadcast for the Pan-American Coffee Bureau, but set aside her prepared text to urge her listeners to rally behind the president and his Cabinet as they led the nation in war:
“Whatever is asked of us, I am sure we can accomplish it; we are the free and unconquerable people of the U.S.A.”
“ ‘Day by Day’ is an excellent example of innovative digital initiatives that the National Archives is embracing as a way of making more original records available to citizens across the country,” Archivist of the United States David Ferriero said. “It will enable students, teachers, scholars and the general public to have greater access to original records.”