The Beacon was originally lit by Charles Lindbergh in 1928 to assist in the early days of commercial aviation. The Beacon shone from the summit of Mount Diablo each night until December 8, 1941, the day after the attack on Pearl Harbor. It was not relit until December 7, 1964, when Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz, Commander in Chief of Pacific Forces during World War II, attended a ceremony on Mount Diablo's summit.
In 1924, while imprisoned at Landsberg Prison following the failed Beer Hall Putsch, a 35-year-old political agitator named Adolf Hitler began writing his manifesto, Mein Kampf. In it, he called for the destruction of the Treaty of Versailles, the creation of a new German Reich through territorial expansion, and the removal of Jews from German life. Fourteen years later, on September 30, 1938, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain returned from Munich to cheering crowds after concluding a meeting with the same Hitler.
"Yesterday, December 7, 1941-a date which will live in infamy -the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by the naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan." President Franklin D. Roosevelt spoke these words in an address to a joint session of Congress and a nationwide radio audience. He continued to set the tone for the United States' entrance into World War II.
