Word: emperor
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Though the vigil for the Emperor lasted more than three months, the Japanese were not officially informed that Hirohito suffered from cancer until after he died. Within moments of the death announcement, mourners converged on the Imperial Palace in Tokyo. "Since he fell ill, I've been praying every day for his recovery," said office clerk Yuko Kitagawa, 32, tears streaming down her cheeks. "I'm just sad." The National Police Agency mobilized 15,000 police to patrol the Imperial and Togu palaces. Many flags flew at half-staff; others were adorned with black ribbons. Japan's stock and bond...
...death, Akihito, 55, received the imperial and state seals and replicas of two of the imperial treasures that symbolize the throne. By legend, the actual treasures -- a mirror, a sword and a crescent-shaped jewel -- trace back to the Shinto sun goddess Amaterasu. The government chose a name for Emperor Akihito's reign: Heisei, the achievement of complete peace on earth and in the heavens...
...many ways, Hirohito perfectly reflected his country's fascination with the West. When Hirohito embarked on a six-month tour of Europe in 1921, he became the first member of the Japanese royal family to set foot outside his homeland. For the rest of his life, the Emperor treasured the Paris subway ticket that was his first purchase and a reminder of his first glimpse of freedom. He also took home a taste for Western food and clothes that he never lost. In 1975, 54 years after he expressed a determination to visit the U.S., Hirohito finally realized his dream...
From the beginning, the Emperor commanded more respect as a symbol than as a personality. Installed as Crown Prince at 15, he ascended to the Chrysanthemum Throne in 1926 as the 124th Living God in a dynastic line stretching back more than 26 centuries. Children were told they would be blinded if they saw Hirohito's face; the very mention of his name was taboo. Yet Hirohito was well aware that he was to be as much pawn as ruler. Even as his advisers refrained from looking at him, they also refused to listen to him. His divine authority...
Hirohito's reticence made it difficult to determine whether he was guilty of complicity in, or mere compliance with, the expansionism that characterized Japan during his first two decades as Emperor. Ultimately 2.3 million Japanese soldiers and 800,000 civilians died in World War II. But most of the evidence suggests that Hirohito was at heart a peace-loving man. At a Cabinet meeting in 1941, when his ministers agitated for the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the Emperor surprised them all by suddenly reciting a poem composed by his grandfather, the Emperor Meiji: "In a world/ Where all the seas...