Executive Order 9066 (1942) — Japanese-American internment
event
The US government once locked up around 120,000 of its own people, most of them citizens, purely for their ancestry — and the Supreme Court blessed it.
Who they are
Executive Order 9066, signed by President Franklin Roosevelt on February 19, 1942.
What they do
It authorized military 'exclusion zones' that were used to round up and intern about 120,000 Japanese-Americans, roughly two-thirds of them US citizens.
How it works
The order came from the top level of the US government (the executive branch) and targeted Japanese-Americans; the Supreme Court upheld it in the 1944 Korematsu case.
Why it matters
The engine files it as a court-tested example of a government singling out and punishing a group — it records the documented facts and holds back on any deeper interpretation, listing it alongside the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act and the 1935 Nuremberg Laws.
The engine's record — word for word
[in-scope 1200-2040; new instance] 19 Feb 1942; F.D. Roosevelt authorized military exclusion zones, applied to ~120,000 Japanese-Americans (~two-thirds US citizens); upheld in Korematsu v. US (1944). Structural class: exemption-against (#100) / state-scale pharmakos — a court-tested 20th-century instance. DOCUMENTED FACT: author-of-record = the US sovereign (executive); target = Japanese-Americans. Readings HELD, not asserted; record documents the instance only. Sibling: chinese_exclusion_1882, nuremberg_laws_1935. Tier-1 (US National Archives; FDR Library).
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