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[1].
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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