Hirohito
, posthumously honored as Emperor Shōwa, was the 124th emperor of Japan according to the traditional order of succession, reigning from 1926 until his death in 1989. He remains the longest-reigning emperor in Japanese history and one of the longest-reigning monarchs in the world. As emperor during the Shōwa era, Hirohito presided over the rise of Japanese militarism, the Japanese invasion of Manchuria, the Second Sino-Japanese War, the Asia-Pacific theater of World War II, and the nation's postwar economic miracle.
Hirohito was born during the reign of his paternal grandfather, Emperor Meiji, as the first child of Crown Prince Yoshihito and Crown Princess Sadako. 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 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 attacks on other U.S. and British colonies in the region. After the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the Soviet invasion of Japanese-occupied Manchuria, Hirohito called upon the Imperial Japanese Armed Forces to surrender in a radio broadcast on 15 August 1945. The extent of his involvement in military decision-making and his wartime culpability remains a subject of historical debate.
Following Japan's surrender, Emperor Hirohito was never prosecuted for war crimes at the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, 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 new 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". Upon his death in January 1989, he was succeeded by his eldest son, Akihito, beginning the Heisei era.
Early life and education
Hirohito was born on 29 April 1901 at Tōgū 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. He was the grandson of Emperor Meiji and Yanagiwara Naruko. His childhood title was Prince Michi.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. At the age of 3, Hirohito and his brother Yasuhito were returned to court when Kawamura died – first to the imperial mansion in Numazu, Shizuoka, then back to the Aoyama Palace.
In 1908, he began elementary studies at the Gakushūin. Emperor Mutsuhito then appointed General Nogi Maresuke to be the Gakushūin's tenth president as well as in charge of educating his grandson. After Nogi's death, his education was led by Fleet Admiral Togo Heihachiro and Naval Captain Ogasawara Naganari, who would later become his major opponents with regards to his national defense policy.
File:Emperor Taisho's sons 1921.jpg|thumb|Emperor Taishō's four sons in 1921: Hirohito, Takahito, Nobuhito, and Yasuhito
During 1912, at the age of 11, Hirohito was commissioned into the Imperial Japanese Army as a Second Lieutenant and in the Imperial Japanese Navy as an Ensign. He was also 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.
Shiratori Kurakichi, one of his middle-school instructors, was one of the personalities who deeply influenced the life of Hirohito. Kurakichi was a trained historian from Germany, imbibing the positivist historiographic trend by Leopold von Ranke. He 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. The emperors were often a driving force in the modernization of their country. He taught Hirohito that the Empire of Japan was created and governed through diplomatic actions.
Crown Prince
On 2 November 1916, Hirohito was formally proclaimed crown prince and heir apparent. An investiture ceremony was not required to confirm this status.Overseas travel
From 3 March to 3 September 1921, the Crown Prince made official visits to the United Kingdom, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, Vatican City and Malta. This was the first visit to Europe by the Crown Prince. Despite strong opposition in Japan, this was realized by the efforts of elder Japanese statesmen such as Yamagata Aritomo and Saionji Kinmochi.The departure of Prince Hirohito was widely reported in newspapers. The Japanese battleship Katori was used, and departed from Yokohama, sailed to Naha, Hong Kong, Singapore, Colombo, Suez, Cairo, and Gibraltar. In April, Hirohito was present in Malta for the opening of the Maltese Parliament. After sailing for two months, the Katori arrived in Portsmouth on 9 May, on the same day reaching the British capital, London. 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. The next day, he met Prince Edward at Windsor Castle, and a banquet was held every day thereafter. In London, he toured the British Museum, the Tower of London, the Bank of England, Lloyd's Marine Insurance, Oxford University, Army University, and the Naval War College. He also enjoyed theater at the New Oxford Theatre and the Delhi Theatre.
At the University of Cambridge, he listened to Professor Joseph Robson Tanner's lecture on "Relationship between the British Royal Family and its People", and was awarded an honorary doctorate degree. He visited Edinburgh, Scotland, from 19 to 20 May, and was also awarded an Honorary Doctor of Laws at the University of Edinburgh. He stayed at the residence of John Stewart-Murray, 8th Duke of Atholl, for three days. On his stay with Stuart-Murray, the prince was quoted as saying, "The rise of Bolsheviks won't happen if you live a simple life like Duke Athol."
In Italy, he met with King Vittorio Emanuele III and others, attended official international banquets, and visited places such as the fierce battlefields of World War I.
Regency
After returning to Japan, Hirohito became Regent of Japan on 25 November 1921, in place of his ailing father, who was affected by mental illness. In 1923 he was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel in the army and Commander in the navy, and army Colonel and Navy Captain in 1925.Visit to colonial Taiwan
Over 12 days in April 1923, Hirohito visited Taiwan, which had been a Japanese colony since 1895. This was a voyage his father, the then Crown Prince Yoshihito had planned in 1911 but never completed.It was widely reported in Taiwanese newspapers that famous high-end restaurants served typical Chinese luxury dishes for the Prince, such as swallow's nest and shark fin, as Taiwanese cuisine. This was the first time an Emperor or a Crown Prince had ever eaten the local cuisine of a colony, or had foreign dishes other than Western cuisine abroad, thus exceptional preparations were required: The eight chefs and other cooking staff were purified for a week before the cooking of the feast could begin. This tasting of "Taiwanese cuisine" of the Prince Regent as part of an integration ceremony of incorporating the colony into the empire, which can be seen as the context and purpose of Hirohito's Taiwanese visit.
Having visited several sites outside of Taipei, Hirohito returned to the capital on the 24th and on 25 April, just one day before his departure, he visited the Beitou hotspring district of Taipei and its oldest facility. The original structure had been built in 1913 in the style of a traditional Japanese bathhouse. 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. The new building was subsequently opened to the public and was deemed the largest public bathhouse in the Japanese Empire.
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. So, he decided to walk into the creek to investigate.
Naturally, concerned for a royal family member's safety, his entourage scurried around, seeking flat rocks to use as stepping stones. After that, these stones were carefully mounted and given the official name: “His Imperial Highness Crown Prince of Japan's Stepping Stones for River Crossing,” with a stele alongside to tell the story.
Crown Prince Hirohito handed his Imperial Notice to Governor-General Den Kenjiro and departed from Keelung on 26 April 1923.