83 Facts About Hirohito

Hirohito, posthumously honored as Emperor Showa, was the 124th emperor of Japan according to the traditional order of succession, from 25 December 1926 until his death in 1989.

Hirohito remains Japan's longest-reigning emperor as well as one of the world's longest-reigning monarchs.

Hirohito was born during the reign of his paternal grandfather, Emperor Meiji, as the first child of the Crown Prince Yoshihito and Crown Princess Sadako.

When Emperor Meiji died in 1912, Hirohito's father ascended the throne, and Hirohito was proclaimed crown prince and heir apparent in 1916.

In 1924, Hirohito married Princess Nagako Kuni, and they had seven children.

Once Hirohito formally sanctioned his government's decision to go to war against the US and its allies on 1 December 1941, the Pacific War began one week later with a Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor as well as on other US and British colonies in the region.

In 1946, Hirohito was pressured by the Allies into renouncing his divinity.

Hirohito was born on 29 April 1901 at Togu Palace in Aoyama, Tokyo during the reign of his grandfather, Emperor Meiji, the first son of 21-year-old Crown Prince Yoshihito and 16-year-old Crown Princess Sadako, the future Empress Teimei.

Hirohito was the grandson of Emperor Meiji and Yanagiwara Naruko.

Ten weeks after he was born, Hirohito was removed from the court and placed in the care of Count Kawamura Sumiyoshi, who raised him as his grandchild.

The main aspect that they focused was on physical education and health, primarily because Hirohito was a sickly child, on par with the impartment or inculcation of values such as frugality, patience, manliness, self-control, and devotion to the duty at hand.

Hirohito was bestowed with the Grand Cordon of the Order of the Chrysanthemum.

When his grandfather, Emperor Meiji died on 30 July 1912, Yoshihito assumed the throne and his eldest son, Hirohito became heir apparent.

Hirohito was the one who inculcated in the mind of the young Hirohito that there is a connection between the divine origin of the imperial line and the aspiration of linking it to the myth of the racial superiority and homogeneity of the Japanese.

Hirohito taught Hirohito that the Empire of Japan was created and governed through diplomatic actions.

On 2 November 1916, Hirohito was formally proclaimed crown prince and heir apparent.

The departure of Prince Hirohito was widely reported in newspapers.

Hirohito was welcomed in the UK as a partner of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance and met with King George V and Prime Minister David Lloyd George.

That evening, a banquet was held at Buckingham Palace, where Hirohito met with George V and Prince Arthur of Connaught.

George V said that he treated his father like Hirohito, who was nervous in an unfamiliar foreign country, and that relieved his tension.

Hirohito enjoyed theater at the New Oxford Theatre and the Delhi Theatre.

Hirohito stayed at the residence of John Stewart-Murray, 8th Duke of Atholl, for three days.

Over 12 days in April 1923, Hirohito visited Taiwan, which had been a Japanese colony since 1895.

However, in anticipation of Hirohito's visit an additional residential wing was added to the earlier building, this time in the style of an Edwardian country house.

Crown Prince Hirohito was a student of science, and he had heard that Beitou Creek was one of only two hot springs in the world that contained a rare radioactive mineral.

Crown Prince Hirohito handed his Imperial Notice to Governor-General Den Kenjiro and departed from Keelung on 26 April 1923.

Prince Hirohito married his distant cousin Princess Nagako Kuni, the eldest daughter of Prince Kuniyoshi Kuni, on 26 January 1924.

In November 1928, Hirohito's accession was confirmed in ceremonies which are conventionally identified as "enthronement" and "coronation" ; but this formal event would have been more accurately described as a public confirmation that he possessed the Japanese Imperial Regalia, called the Three Sacred Treasures, which have been handed down through the centuries.

The first part of Hirohito's reign took place against a background of financial crisis and increasing military power within the government through both legal and extralegal means.

Hirohito narrowly escaped assassination by a hand grenade thrown by a Korean independence activist, Lee Bong-chang, in Tokyo on 9 January 1932, in the Sakuradamon Incident.

When Chief Aide-de-camp Shigeru Honjo informed him of the revolt, Hirohito immediately ordered that it be put down and referred to the officers as "rebels".

The works of Yoshiaki Yoshimi and Seiya Matsuno show that Hirohito authorized, by specific orders, the use of chemical weapons against the Chinese.

On 1 December 1937, Hirohito had given formal instruction to General Iwane Matsui to capture and occupy the enemy capital of Nanking.

Hirohito was very eager to fight this battle since he and his council firmly believed that all it would take is a one huge blow to bring forth the surrender of Chiang Kai-shek.

Hirohito even gave an Imperial Rescript to Iwane when he returned to Tokyo a year later, despite the brutality that his officers had inflicted on the Chinese populace in Nanking; thus Hirohito had seemingly turned a blind eye to and condoned these monstrosities.

In July 1939, Hirohito quarrelled with his brother, Prince Chichibu, over whether to support the Anti-Comintern Pact, and reprimanded the army minister, Seishiro Itagaki.

On this evening, Hirohito had a meeting with the chief of staff of the army, Sugiyama, chief of staff of the navy, Osami Nagano, and Prime Minister Konoe.

Hirohito questioned Sugiyama about the chances of success of an open war with the Occident.

Hirohito justified himself to his chief cabinet secretary, Kenji Tomita, by stating:.

Hirohito initially showed hesitance towards engaging in war, but eventually approved the decision to strike Pearl Harbor despite opposition from certain advisors.

Hirohito played an increasingly influential role in the war; in eleven major episodes he was deeply involved in supervising the actual conduct of war operations.

Hirohito secured the deployment of army air power in the Guadalcanal campaign.

In September 1944, Hirohito declared that it must be his citizens' resolve to smash the evil purposes of the Westerners so that their imperial destiny might continue, but all along, it is just a mask for the urgent need of Japan to scratch a victory against the counter-offensive campaign of the Allied Forces.

Hirohito was quoted that he approved of such since if they won in that campaign, they would be finally having a room to negotiate with the Americans.

In early 1945, in the wake of the losses in the Battle of Leyte, Emperor Hirohito began a series of individual meetings with senior government officials to consider the progress of the war.

In February 1945, during the first private audience with Hirohito he had been allowed in three years, Konoe advised Hirohito to begin negotiations to end the war.

On 12 August 1945, Hirohito informed the imperial family of his decision to surrender.

Australia, Britain and 70 percent of the American public wanted Hirohito tried as a Class-A war criminal.

Hirohito was not merely presented as being innocent of any formal acts that might make him culpable to indictment as a war criminal, he was turned into an almost saintly figure who did not even bear moral responsibility for the war.

Hirohito was however persistent in the idea that the Emperor of Japan should be considered a descendant of the gods.

Hirohito was forced to resign from the House of Peers and his post at the Tokyo Imperial University, his books were banned, and an attempt was made on his life.

Hirohito was limited to performing matters of state as delineated in the Constitution, and in most cases his actions in that realm were carried out in accordance with the binding instructions of the Cabinet.

In 1947, Hirohito became the symbol of the State and of the unity of the people under the nation's new constitution, which was written by the United States.

Hirohito was not only the first reigning Japanese emperor to visit foreign countries, but the first to meet an American president.

In France, Hirohito was warmly welcomed, and reunited with Edward VIII, who had abdicated in 1936 and was virtually in exile, and they chatted for a while.

The protests against Hirohito's visit condemned and highlighted what they perceived as mutual Japanese and West German complicity in and enabling of the American war effort against communism in Vietnam.

Hirohito's contributions included the description of several dozen species of Hydrozoa new to science.

Hirohito maintained an official boycott of the Yasukuni Shrine after it was revealed to him that Class-A war criminals had secretly been enshrined after its post-war rededication.

On 20 July 2006, Nihon Keizai Shimbun published a front-page article about the discovery of a memorandum detailing the reason that Hirohito stopped visiting Yasukuni.

On 22 September 1987, Hirohito underwent surgery on his pancreas after having digestive problems for several months.

Hirohito appeared to be making a full recovery for several months after the surgery.

Hirohito was survived by his wife, his five surviving children, ten grandchildren, and one great-grandchild.

Hirohito is buried in the Musashi Imperial Graveyard in Hachioji, Tokyo alongside his late parents, Emperor Taisho and Empress Teimei, and his wife, Empress Nagako, who died in 2000.

Historians who point to a higher degree of the Emperor's involvement in the war have stated that Hirohito was directly responsible for the atrocities committed by the imperial forces in the Second Sino-Japanese War and in World War II.

Hirohito further stated that Japanese statesmen Kido Koichi's wartime journal undeniably proves that Hirohito had a crucial role in the final decision to wage a war against the Allied nations in December 1941.

Poison gas weapons, such as phosgene, were produced by Unit 731 and authorized by specific orders given by Hirohito himself, transmitted by the chief of staff of the army.

Hirohito authorized the use of toxic gas 375 times during the Battle of Wuhan from August to October 1938.

Hirohito rewarded Shiro Ishii, who was the head of the medical experimentation unit and Unit 731, with a special service medal.

Prince Mikasa, the younger brother of Hirohito, informed the Yomiuri Shimbun that during 1944, he compiled a thorough report detailing the wartime atrocities perpetrated by Japanese soldiers in China.

Historians such as Herbert Bix, Akira Fujiwara, Peter Wetzler, and Akira Yamada assert that post-war arguments favoring the view that Hirohito was a mere figurehead overlook the importance of numerous "behind the chrysanthemum curtain" meetings where the real decisions were made between the Emperor, his chiefs of staff, and the cabinet.

In December 1990, the Bungeishunju published the Showa tenno dokuhaku roku, which recorded conversations Hirohito held with five Imperial Household Ministry officials between March and April 1946, containing twenty-four sections.

The Dokuhaku roku recorded Hirohito speaking retroactively on topics arranged chronologically from 1919 to 1946, right before the Tokyo War Crimes Trials.

Hirohito was more aware than his military commanders of Japan's vulnerability to an economic blockade by Western powers.

The passage in the Dokuhaku roku refutes the theory that Hirohito wanted an early conclusion to the war owing to his value for peace.

Hirohito rejected the proposal and did not want to give concessions to China because he feared it would signal Japanese weakness, create defeatism at home, and trigger independence movements in occupied countries.

On 14 February 1945, Fumimaro Konoe wrote a proposal to Hirohito, urging him to quell extremist elements within the military and end the war.

Hirohito was troubled by the ambiguity surrounding America's commitment to upholding imperial rule.

Hirohito considered the advice of Army Chief of Staff Yoshijiro Umezu, who advocated for continuing the fight to the bitter end, believing that the Americans could be lured into a trap on Taiwan, where they could be defeated.

Nara's diary entries show that Hirohito was well aware of the Mukden Incident and acknowledged that Japanese General Kanji Ishiwara was its instigator.

Hirohito added that conspiracy to wage aggressive war was not illegal in 1937, or at any point since.

Hirohito considered the Japanese military operations as justified, because Chiang Kai-shek supported the boycott of trade operations by the Western Powers, particularly the United States boycott of oil exports to Japan.

Hirohito considered that to be self-defense operations which are not criminal.

Whitehead explained after World War II that Hirohito's humility was fundamental for the Japanese people to accept the new 1947 constitution and allied occupation.