Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo — Japan
April 18 1942 — the Doolittle Raiders bomb Tokyo, Kobe, Osaka, and Nagoya. The first attack on the Japanese home islands.
Physical damage was minimal — the raid was psychological. Japanese civilians had been told the homeland was invulnerable. Emperor Hirohito was a kilometre from one of the bombs. Japan subsequently diverted fighters from the Pacific to home defence and launched the Midway operation that led to its catastrophic defeat in June 1942.