Executive Order 9066
1942 U.S. presidential order for the internment of Japanese-Americans
Executive Order 9066 was a United States presidential executive order signed and issued during World War II by United States president Franklin D. Roosevelt on February 19, 1942. According to the National Archives and Records Administration, the order "authorized the forced removal of all persons deemed a threat to national security" from the West Coast to inland 'relocation centers'. It resulted in the mass incarceration of Japanese Americans. Two-thirds of the 125,000 people displaced were U.S. citizens.
Far more Americans of Asian descent were forcibly interned than Americans of European descent, both in total and as a share of their relative populations. German and Italian Americans who were sent to internment camps during the war were sent under the provisions of the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798.
Transcript of Executive Order 9066
The text of Executive Order 9066 was as follows:
Executive Order No. 9066
Executive Order
Authorizing the Secretary of War to Prescribe Military Areas
Whereas the successful prosecution of the war requires every possible protection against espionage and against sabotage to national-defense material, national-defense premises, and national-defense utilities as defined in Section 4, Act of April 20, 1918, 40 Stat. 533, as amended by the Act of November 30, 1940, 54 Stat. 1220, and the Act of August 21, 1941, 55 Stat.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Executive Order 9066” is 1942 U.S. presidential order for the internment of Japanese-Americans. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Executive, Order and presidential, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “1942 U.S. presidential order for the internment of Japanese-Americans” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 13, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2159918. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1942, 1798, 1918 and 1940.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Executive Order 9066”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Executive Order 9066 primary sources, Executive Order 9066 archive and Executive research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Executive Order 9066”?
- What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
- Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Executive Order 9066” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.