War has played a key role in the history of the United States, from the nation's founding

right down to the present. War made the U.S. independent, kept it together, increased its size,

and established it as a global superpower. Understanding America's wars is essential for understanding American history.

Welcome to Key Battles of American History,

a podcast in which we discuss American history

through the lens of the most important battles of America's wars.

Here is your host, James Early.

Music host, James Early. Hello and welcome back to Key Battles of the Pacific War of World War II.

This is James, and let's start out by recapping what we talked about in our last episode.

It's always good

to review where we've been before we go on to the next thing. So in the last episode, we talked

about the Japanese Blitzkrieg. And it's given that term because even though it's not like a German

blitzkrieg on land with tanks and all that, it's very much a naval and airblitz Creek. In the last episode,

we saw the Japanese Empire took over many different territories. They conquered or invaded and

conquered French Indochina, Thailand, Burma, Philippines, Dutch East Indies, Tullaghi, which is a small island, and we will

talk about that quite a bit later, Guam, Wake Island, and many other territories. Just stunningly,

in a very short amount of time, or at least a relatively short amount of time, expanded their

empire to the south, to the west, and to the east.

And they are going to continue doing that. They are not done by any stretch of the imagination.

Today's episode will look at the battle that ensued when the Japanese tried to extend their empire even further, and that is

the Battle of the Coral Sea.

This is Key Battle 2.

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