The emperor who carried Japan through war and constitutional transformation
“Enduring the unendurable”, a phrase from his 1945 rescript announcing Japan’s surrender
Hirohito was Japan’s 124th emperor from 1926 to 1989, occupying both the sovereign position of the imperial constitution and the symbolic role defined by the postwar constitution. He stood at the apex of the state that authorized Japan’s aggression and Pacific War, while the extent of his responsibility for the war and its crimes remains contested. After Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and the Soviet entry into the war left the Supreme Council deadlocked, he intervened to accept the Potsdam terms and announced the surrender by radio. After the war he renounced imperial divinity and remained a symbolic head of state, while continuing his research in marine biology.
Career Timeline
- 1901Born in Tokyo
- 1916Proclaimed Crown Prince
- 1921–1926Regent of Japan
- 1926–1945124th Emperor of Japan, exercising imperial authority under the imperial constitution
- 1941Approved the decision to enter war against the United States, Britain, and the Netherlands
- 1945Decided to accept the Potsdam terms and announced Japan’s surrender
- 1947–1989Symbolic emperor under the Constitution of Japan
- 1989Died in Tokyo