[1][2] Shortly before Mussolini's statement, Italian Foreign Minister Galeazzo Ciano delivered the news to the head U.S. diplomat in Italy, George Wadsworth II.

[2] On December 7, 1941, 353 aircraft of the Empire of Japan attacked the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor and inflicted mass destruction on American life and property, drawing the United States into the Second World War.

Three days later, at 2:45 PM on December 11, 1941, Italian dictator Benito Mussolini announced—from the balcony overlooking the Piazza Venezia in Rome—that Italy and Germany would "participate from today on the side of heroic Japan" against the United States.

[3][6] That same day, Adolf Hitler made his announcement at the Reichstag in Berlin, stating that while he had tried to avoid direct conflict with the U.S., Germany was obliged to join with Italy to defend Japan under the Tripartite Pact of 1940.

Hitler also stated, "After victory has been achieved, Germany, Italy, and Japan will continue in closest co-operation with a view to establishing a new and just order.

The powers of the steel pact, Fascist Italy and Nationalist Socialist Germany, ever closely linked, participate from today on the side of heroic Japan against the United States of America.

The formidable blows that on the immense Pacific expanse have been already inflicted on American forces show how prepared are the soldiers of the Empire of the Rising Sun.