I got sucked into a Wiki-hole today, and learned the first state ratified was Delaware on Dec 7th, 1787. The date lept out at me, and thus did this question. Did the Japanese plan this for any particular reason or was this purely coincidence? It seems kind of poetic that on December 7th the United States begun actually having states, and then chosen to begin (in their mind) it's downfall.
It doesn't matter one way or the other, but it was bothering me. I figured if Reddit can track down the source to pretty much anything porn related, no matter how obscure, that someone might know the answer to this.
I've never seen that mentioned as a reason for the timing of the Pearl Harbor attack, which had a host of other geostrategic reasons for happening. Also, the Pearl Harbor attack took place on Dec. 8 in Japan, and Japanese ships kept imperial time.
It's purely a coincidence. Timing was dictated by the exigencies of operational planning and the efforts of the less bellicose members of the War Cabinet to gain more time for last-gasp diplomatic efforts. Furthermore, none of the War Cabinet were scholars of American history and the objectives of the war were to secure the South-East Asian oilfields and end American support for the Chinese Nationalists, not to destroy the United States, so there is very little reason for Japanese planners to have noticed or intended any symmetry.
Source:
Ian Kershaw, Fateful Choices: Ten Decisions that Changed the World 1940-1941, 2007