3.The United States Entered World War II After Pearl Harbor
3.美国因为珍珠港事件参加二战
While it is true that the United States did not officially declare war on the Japanese—and by extension all of the Axis powers—until the bombing of Pearl Harbor, it had already been far from a neutral nation, and US actions essentially forced a Pearl Harbor scenario to play out. The Japanese were reliant on the United States for most of their oil, but they had gone to war against China, an ally of the United States.
珍珠港事件爆发前，美国并未向日本正式宣战，也没对轴心国宣战。珍珠港事件爆发，迫使美国不再中立，它的行动皆因珍珠港事件而起。日本原本依赖美国提供给其大部分石油，但又去攻击中国——美国的同盟国。
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt ordered a freeze of Japanese assets because he was starting to worry about the possibility of war. Japanese traders would have to get licenses to export oil, a move that was meant to hurt them but not cause enough friction for war. Unfortunately, the man President Roosevelt put in charge of licensing decided that no one should be granted any licenses at all. He believed that the Japanese wouldn't dare attack the United States and wanted to cut off their resources. This led to the attack; the Japanese government knew that with the loss in resources, they had to move fast to gain new fuel sources, and they also had to cripple US naval capabilities.
富兰克林·德拉诺·罗斯福总统（Franklin Delano Roosevelt）因担忧战争可能爆发，下令冻结日本资产。日本贸易商在取得许可后，方能输出石油——这一举措，在某种程度上有损日本利益，但不至于引起战争。不幸的是，罗斯福总统又决定限制证件，使得没人能得到许可。他自信地认为，日本不敢袭击美国，又想停止对他们的资源供应。这便是事件的导火索。日本政府清楚自己失去了资源，明白自己必须加紧步伐去得到新能源，且势必要让美国海军吃吃苦头!

There were also the many moves to fight the Axis powers behind the scenes, before they had even become the Axis powers formally. Roosevelt worked first to remove the Neutrality Act so that he could sell weapons to Allies, then he worked to pass the Lend-Lease Act, which allowed the US to lend or give arms to countries who would agree to pay for their use at a later date.
事实上，当时并未正式确定轴心国，美国却已有反抗轴心国的众多举措。罗斯福总统首先放弃中立，这为他向同盟国出售武器大开方便之门，之后又使租借法案通过，允许美国向其他国家借出或给予军事支持，前提是这些国家必须承诺将来要支付酬劳。
There was also a controversial deal worked out by Roosevelt over the heads of Congress to give the British 50 old destroyers in exchange for some naval bases. These actions caused the Axis powers to state in their formal declaration that they would protect each other from attacks by the Americans—clearly our interference was already on their radar. While it was hard to convince the American public to go to war again after its demoralizing participation in World War I, the US was already fighting a shadow war against the Axis powers for years before Pearl Harbor.
且罗斯福总统也做出了一个颇有争议的举措，他无视国会为英国提供50艘驱逐舰以换取西半球8个基地。这些举动使得轴心国发布正式声明，宣称必须互相保护，以免受美国攻击——很明显我们的干扰他们一清二楚。尽管很难劝服一战过后士气低落的美国民众再次参战，美国对轴心国的战争，早在珍珠港事件之前便已展开，只是无形罢了。

2.The Scottish Wore Kilts While Fighting The English
2.苏格兰士兵着短裙对战英格兰

The movie Braveheart has entrenched in our minds the idea of the medieval Scottish fighting the British while wearing colorful tartan kilts. In fact, most people likely believed this before the release of the popular film, as it has long been a popular way to denote Scottish heritage or lineage in cinema and other media—just have the men wear tartan kilts. While historians have known for a while that the tartan kilt thing wasn't very accurate (along with many other inaccuracies in Braveheart), in recent years they have done more to explain the misconception.
电影《勇敢的心》使得中世纪苏格兰人穿着颜色各异的格子呢短裙对战英格兰的形象，在大众心中根深蒂固。事实上，男人着裙装，是影视及其他媒体描述苏格兰风情特色的流行做法，可能大多数人在这部电影放映之前，就已经对此有所耳闻了。历史学家考证得知，苏格兰士兵着格子呢短裙参加战斗，并非完全符合史实（《勇敢的心》中也有其他许多对苏格兰民俗的错误演绎）。近几年来，他们为消除人们对苏格兰文化的误解做了很多努力。
One historian in particular, Fergus Cannan (who claims to be related to Robert the Bruce himself), spent years going through old records and came to the conclusion that the uniform worn by the medieval Scottish warriors was different than imagined. They wore tunics, which might be vaguely reminiscent of kilts but are an entirely different item of clothing. These tunics were not tartan, but dyed bright yellow, often with the use of urine. For better protection, a sleeveless vest made of leather would be worn over the top, and they usually also wore a leather belt around the waist. According to some records, the style was known as the “yellow war shirt” and was still remembered and respected hundreds of years after its popular use.
尤其是历史学家费格斯·坎南（Fergus Cannan）（他自称与罗伯特和布鲁斯有亲缘关系），他花费了几年时间查找古籍资料并得出结论：中世纪苏格兰士兵所着战袍与大众所想并不一致。士兵所着束腰外衣，可能会让人联想起短裙，但两者款式却完全不同。制作这些束腰外衣的原材料并非格子呢，通常是用尿液染成嫩黄色的布料。士兵们在最外层会套件皮革制成的无袖背心，以作防护之用，此外，他们还系着皮质腰带。一些资料将这种装束风格称为黄色战袍，几百年后的今天仍备受推崇。

1.The Bombing Of Hiroshima And Nagasaki Was Unprecedented
1.广岛和长崎的原子弹爆炸绝无仅有

The bombing of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki near the end of World War II was the first time nuclear bombs were dropped on civilian populations with the intent to annihilate. The question of whether these atomic bombs should have been used at all has been debated in academic and political circles ever since. Some proponents argue that such massive destruction is never justified, no matter what the aim is. Other people argue that if nothing had been done to frighten the Japanese into surrender, they would have fought to the last man; the body count on both sides would have been unthinkable. It's hard to say what is morally right in this case, but bombing civilians certainly isn't a choice most people would ever want to have to make.
第二次世界大战末期，日本广岛（Hiroshima）和长崎（Nagasaki）的原子弹爆炸，是史上第一次以彻底摧毁为目的的核爆炸。此后，关于究竟该如何使用这些原子弹，学术界和政坛都进行了激烈辩论。一些支持者认为无论什么原因，发生在哪里，如此严重的破坏都是不合理的。而其他人坚信，当时如果没有做点儿什么来吓吓日本人，迫使他们乖乖投降的话，他们会战斗到最后一个人，这么一来，战争双方的伤亡人数将多到无法想象。道德层面上来讲，我们很难说清怎样才是对的，但轰炸平民明显不是大多数人所喜闻乐见的。
What isn't often acknowledged is that both the Allies and the Axis powers were doing it far before the bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Now, most people would say that bombing civilians is wrong in most or all cases and that the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was an unprecedented level of destruction in an extreme case to try to force the Japanese to surrender. However, not only had the United States been bombing civilians before those events, but some of its previous bombing runs were even more destructive than the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
大多数人不知道的是，早在广岛和长崎遭原子弹轰炸前，同盟国（Allies）和轴心国（the Axis）就开始研发原子弹了。现在大多数人会觉得，在大多数情况下，或者说不管在什么情况下，轰炸平民都是不对的，而广岛和长崎原子弹爆炸虽然造成了前所未有的的破坏，但却是在极端情况下为了迫使日本投降才做的决定。然而，美国在之前的战争中就曾向无辜百姓投弹轰炸，而且，有些爆炸所造成的破坏要远远大于广岛和长崎。
Before the United States bombed those two cities, it firebombed Tokyo not once, but twice with B-29 bombers. While it may not have been a single bomb, the destruction was horrendous. Roughly 100,000 people were killed in the first raid and 125,000 more in the second, and about 220 square kilometers (85 mi2) of city was effectively destroyed over the course of both raids. In comparison, the amount of land destroyed was about a quarter of that at Hiroshima, and the number of people killed was roughly 80,000. Nagasaki was a smaller city, so the bombing caused 45,000 casualties and an even smaller amount of destroyed city and land. This is not to say that what happened at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was not horrendous, but it was not the first time a bombing raid had caused such absurd destruction. Whether or not the use of the atomic bomb was warranted, the United States was already destroying scores of people and leveling cities without it.
美国轰炸这两个城市之前就曾两次用B-29炸弹炮轰东京，投下的炮弹可能不止一个，造成的破坏令人触目惊心。第一次轰炸造成10万人死亡，第二次更甚，又造成12.5万人死亡，两次轰炸共计将220平方公里左右（85平方英里）的城区夷为平地。相比之下，广岛原子弹破坏面积是这两次袭击破坏面积的四分之一，爆炸当天罹难人数约为8万。长崎毕竟是个小城市，爆炸致使4.5万人死亡，相比东京要少，摧毁的城区和土地就更少了。这并不是说长崎和广岛的遭遇不令人心痛，而是说那并非第一次摧毁性的原子弹爆炸惨剧。不管原子弹的使用有没有得到授权许可，美国都确确实实杀害了大批无辜百姓，摧毁了大片城区土地。

审校：瑶瑶Yvonne 校对：丸子 编辑：Freya然