Hulu is an American subscription streaming service majority-owned by The Walt Disney Company, with Comcast's NBCUniversal holding a minority stake (1:2). It was launched on October 29, 2007 and it offers a library of films and television series from studios including 20th Century Studios, Searchlight Pictures, Disney Television Studios, ABC, Freeform, and FX Networks among others, as well as Hulu original programming. Hulu was initially established as a joint venture between News Corporation and NBC Universal, Providence Equity Partners, and later The Walt Disney Company, serving as an aggregation of recent episodes of television series from their respective television networks. In 2010, Hulu launched a subscription service, initially branded as "Hulu Plus", which featured full seasons of programs from the companies and other partners, and undelayed access to new episodes. In 2017, the company launched Hulu with Live TV—an over-the-top live TV service featuring linear television channels. As of January 1, 2023, Hulu has a total of 48 million subscribers in United States. In 2011, Hulu began its first and only overseas expansion by launching its service in Japan. Three years later in 2014, the Japan counterpart of Hulu was acquired by Nippon TV and has since been operated as a separate service under the name Hulu Japan.
The Pacific War, sometimes called the Asia-Pacific War, was the scene of World War II, which took place in East Asia, the Pacific Ocean, the Indian Ocean, and Oceania. Geographically, it was the largest theater of the war, including the huge war rampage in the Pacific, the war in the Southwest Pacific, the Second Sino-Japanese War, and the Soviet-Japanese War. The Second Sino-Japanese War between the Empire of Japan and the Republic of China had been ongoing since July 7, 1937, with hostilities extending as far back as September 19, 1931, with the Japanese invasion of Manchuria. The Pacific War itself began on December 7 (December 8 Japanese time) 1941, when the Japanese simultaneously attacked United States military bases in Hawaii, Wake Island, Guam, and the Philippines and invaded Thailand and the British colonies of Malaya, Singapore and Hong Kong. In the Pacific War, the Allies opposed Japan, aided by Thailand and to a lesser extent by Axis allies. The fighting consisted of some of the largest naval battles in history and incredibly fierce battles and war crimes across Asia and the Pacific Islands resulting in huge loss of life. The war culminated in massive Allied air raids on Japan, including the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, accompanied by a declaration of war by the Soviet Union and the invasion of Manchuria and other territories on August 9, 1945, causing the Japanese to announce their intention to surrender on August 15, 1945.
