Executive Order 9066: The President Authorizes Japanese Relocation: What's Up With the Title?

    Executive Order 9066: The President Authorizes Japanese Relocation: What's Up With the Title?

      Put this one up there with the great titles of all time, folks. Step aside, evocative gems like "Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death!" and "Tear Down This Wall."

      E.O. 9066 is here!

      Yeah, this title is pretty generic, especially if you're not totally sure what an E.O. actually is. As mentioned in the "Glossary," executive orders are instructions by the president that guide the activities of executive departments (also described in the "Glossary").

      Executive orders are the president's way of handing power to different parts of the government, as well as telling them what they can and can't do. They are directed at individuals and entities within the government, but they often directly impact the lives of citizens.

      Executive orders are assigned a specific number that indicates the order in which they were enacted, stretching all the way back to America's first president, good ol' George "Wooden Teeth" Washington. This is sort of helpful if you know what you're looking for, but if not, then picking through thousands and thousands of executive orders could be a major drag. That's why some are referred to by informal names or combined with subtitles that describe their actions.

      This document is one such example—E.O. 9066: The President Authorizes Japanese Relocation. Ahh, that clears things up a bit.