Hirohito Michinomiya
(b. Yokohama, 29 Apr. 1901; d. 7 Jan. 1989) Japanese; Showa Emperor of Japan 1926 – 89 Hirohito was the 124th Emperor of Japan and his reign coincided with great changes in Japan. He was the first senior member of the Japanese royal family to make a formal overseas tour when he visited Europe as Crown Prince in 1921, a tour that influenced his food and dress habits thereafter. He married in 1924 and his first child and heir, Akihiko, was born in 1933. Hirohito succeeded to the throne on the death of his father on 25 December 1926, and took the reign name Showa, meaning "Enlightened Peace". His relationship to the military in Japan remains controversial. In 1936 he ordered his generals to put down a coup that had killed two Cabinet members, but did nothing about the Japanese invasion of China in 1937, or the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. Only when the Cabinet was deadlocked over the decision of whether to accept the terms of the Potsdam Declaration in 1945 did Hirohito intervene again, this time in favour of surrender. Hirohito always claimed that he was carrying out his duty as a constitutional monarch and that there was nothing he could do to prevent the militarism of the 1930s.
Hirohito announced Japan's surrender by radio in August 1945 and he told the Japanese people that it was "time to endure the unendurable"; this was the first time that his voice had ever been broadcast. He visited Douglas MacArthur, the head of the Allied Occupation forces, and offered to take full responsibility for the war; however the US government had already decided that Japan would be easier to administer if the Emperor was maintained as a figurehead, and so Hirohito escaped being tried as a war criminal, despite strong pressure from other Allied countries.
On 1 January 1946 Hirohito officially renounced his divinity and began to restyle himself as a European constitutional monarch, although his attempts at greater openness were constantly stymied by the conservative imperial household which strictly controlled and regulated his life. In 1971 he undertook a controversial tour of Europe, the first overseas visit by a reigning Japanese monarch. He was a distinguished amateur marine biologist who published a number of academic papers.
Hirohito's life was a secretive and enclosed one and little is known about his personal beliefs and opinions. His death after a long illness in January 1989 was regarded by many Japanese as marking the end of a remarkable era of tragedy and success.
