TIL of Jeannette Rankin, the first woman to hold federal office in the United States, and the lone member of Congress to vote against declaring war on Japan in 1941.

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men women do nothing.

The Rape Of Nanking in 1937 where the Japanese killed 300,000 civilians was well known by 1941.

*”After the destruction of the POWs, the soldiers turned their attention to the women of Nanking and an outright animalistic hunt ensued. Old women over the age of 70 as well as little girls under the age of 8 were dragged off to be sexually abused. More than 20,000 females (with some estimates as high as 80,000) were gang-raped by Japanese soldiers, then stabbed to death with bayonets or shot so they could never bear witness.

Pregnant women were not spared. In several instances, they were raped, then had their bellies slit open and the fetuses torn out. Sometimes, after storming into a house and encountering a whole family, the Japanese forced Chinese men to rape their own daughters, sons to rape their mothers, and brothers their sisters, while the rest of the family was made to watch.*

Throughout the city of Nanking, random acts of murder occurred as soldiers frequently fired their rifles into panicked crowds of civilians, killing indiscriminately. Other soldiers killed shopkeepers, looted their stores, then set the buildings on fire after locking people of all ages inside. They took pleasure in the extraordinary suffering that ensued as the people desperately tried to escape the flames by climbing onto rooftops or leaping down onto the street.”

Jeanette Rankin must have known about this... the whole world knew. Yet, even after her own country was attacked, she chose to grandstand.

/r/todayilearned Thread Parent Link - en.wikipedia.org