Hirohito

Emperor Shōwa (29 April 1901 – 7 January 1989), personal name Hirohito, was Emperor of Japan from 25 December 1926 until his death on 7 January 1989. He reigned during a period of increasing Japanese nationalism and militarism, culminating in the entry of the Empire of Japan into World War II as an Axis power. The atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki led Hirohito to announce the surrender of Japan to the Allies in August 1945. Under pressure from the Allies, he issued the Humanity Declaration in January 1946, rejecting the divinity of the emperor as a descendant of Amaterasu. After the war, he presided over a period of unprecedented economic growth known as the Japanese economic miracle. By the time of his death, Hirohito had been Emperor of Japan for 62 years and 13 days, the longest reign in Japanese history and the 12th longest verifiable reign in world history.

Hirohito was born during the reign of his paternal grandfather, Emperor Meiji, as the first child of Crown Prince Yoshihito and Crown Princess Sadako (later Emperor Taishō and Empress Teimei). When Emperor Meiji died in 1912, Hirohito's father ascended the Chrysanthemum Throne, and Hirohito was proclaimed Crown Prince of Japan in 1916, making him the heir apparent. In 1921, he made an official visit to six European countries, marking the first time a Japanese crown prince had traveled abroad. Due to his father's ill health, Hirohito became Sesshō of Japan (regent) that same year. In 1924, he married Princess Nagako Kuni, with whom he later had seven children: Shigeko, Sachiko, Kazuko, Atsuko, Akihito, Masahito and Takako. He became emperor upon his father's death in 1926.

As Japan's head of state, Emperor Hirohito oversaw the rise of militarism in Japanese politics. In 1931, he raised no objection when Japan's Kwantung Army staged the Mukden incident as a pretext for the invasion of Manchuria. Following the onset of the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937, tensions steadily grew between Japan and the United States. After Hirohito formally sanctioned his government's decision to go to war against the U.S. and its allies on 1 December 1941, Japan entered World War II upon its military's attack on Pearl Harbor as well as its invasion of American and European colonies in Asia and the Pacific. After the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the Soviet invasion of Japanese-occupied Manchuria and Korea, Hirohito called upon the Imperial Japanese Armed Forces (IJAF) to surrender in a radio broadcast on 15 August 1945. While historians agree Hirohito was involved to at least some extent in Japan's military strategy and war crimes during the conflict, the degree of that involvement remains disputed.

Following Japan's surrender, Emperor Hirohito was never prosecuted for war crimes at the International Military Tribunal for the Far East (IMTFE), even though the war had been waged in his name. After the surrender, Japan came under Allied occupation, administered primarily by the United States. The Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers, U.S. General Douglas MacArthur, believed that a cooperative emperor would facilitate a peaceful occupation and support U.S. postwar objectives. MacArthur therefore excluded any evidence from the tribunal that could have incriminated Hirohito or other members of the Imperial House of Japan. In 1946, Hirohito was pressured by the Allies to renounce his divinity. Under Japan's post-war constitution, drafted by U.S. officials and enacted in 1947, his role as emperor was redefined as "the symbol of the State and of the unity of the People". He died at Fukiage Ōmiya Palace, aged 87, of a duodenal cancer (adenocarcinoma). He was succeeded by his elder son, Akihito, beginning the Heisei era.