Hirohito reigned 62 years, from divine emperor to constitutional symbol
Hirohito took the throne in 1926 as a monarch said to descend from the sun goddess Amaterasu. He died in 1989 as a constitutional symbol of the state, having publicly renounced that divinity under Allied pressure in 1946. In between lay militarism, world war, surrender and an economic boom, across the longest reign in Japanese history.
Born in Tokyo on 29 April 1901, the grandson of Emperor Meiji, he was taken from court at ten weeks old and raised by a count until the age of three. General Nogi Maresuke oversaw his schooling, and a historian named Shiratori Kurakichi taught him to link the imperial line's divine origin with ideas of Japanese uniqueness. At eleven he was commissioned into both army and navy. In 1921 he became the first Japanese crown prince to travel abroad, sailing on the battleship Katori to Europe, dining with George V at Buckingham Palace and collecting honorary doctorates at Cambridge and Edinburgh. That November he became regent for his mentally ill father.
A keen student of science, on a 1923 visit to colonial Taiwan he learned that a rare radioactive mineral occurred in Beitou Creek, found in just one other hot spring worldwide, and waded in to look. His anxious entourage hurried to lay flat stones for him, and the stones were later mounted with a stele and an elaborate official name. That December he survived an assassination attempt in Tokyo. In 1924 he married Princess Nagako Kuni, and they had seven children.
As emperor he oversaw militarism's rise. He raised no objection in 1931 when the army staged the Mukden incident to justify invading Manchuria, and on 1 December 1941 he sanctioned war against the United States and its allies. After the atomic bombings and the Soviet invasion of Manchuria, he broadcast a call to surrender on 15 August 1945. Historians agree he had some involvement in wartime strategy but still dispute how much.
He was never tried. General Douglas MacArthur judged a cooperative emperor useful for a calm occupation and kept incriminating evidence out of the Tokyo war crimes tribunal. The 1947 constitution recast him as the symbol of the state, and he presided over Japan's postwar economic miracle before dying on 7 January 1989, succeeded by his son Akihito.
Source: Hirohito
