Japanese royalty, the first born son of Emperor Taisho and the crown prince in 1916 and declared the 124th Ruler of Japan on 12/25/1926 after a regency of five years, upon the death of his father, Emperor Taisho. Soon after the prince was born he was taken from his parents to be reared in isolation and trained as the future Emperor. He saw his mother once a week and his father less often. The first member of the Japanese royal family to set foot outside his homeland, Hirohito took a six-month tour of Europe in 1921. He brought back with him a taste for Western food and clothes. His greatest pleasure was the study of marine biology, which he conducted in a laboratory built for him on his palace grounds. Far more than a hobby, he published several books on the subject and was a leading authority on jellyfish (medusa).
Although he was personally opposed to the militarism of the ’30s, he approved the decisions which led to WW II. After Japan’s defeat, on 1/01/1946, he renounced his traditional claims of divinity and became a symbol of the state.
A shy emperor, Hirohito braved making the rounds of factories and opening the Diet (parliament) to foreign envoys. He maintained an ancient and hallowed custom of composing a traditional poem each year.
He married Princess Nagako 1/26/1924, after a delay due the great earthquake of 1923. After a succession of four girls, Prince Tsugu Akihito was born 12/23/1933. In order to ensure that his family be schooled in Western ways, in 1946 Emperor Hirohito brought a gifted American teacher and writer from Philadelphia, PA, Elizabeth Gray Vining, to tutor the Crown Prince and other members of the imperial family.
Hirohito personally signed and affixed the imperial seal to some 60 documents a week. He was meticulous in writing his name with a brush and applying the imperial seal so that both were legible. He participated in about 300 official functions a year, many of which required long hours of travel. In 1975, 54 years after he had first expressed a determination to visit the U.S., the Emperor finally made a 15-day tour, returning with a Mickey Mouse watch which could be seen on the imperial wrist.
Three-and-a-half years before his death at age 87, Emperor Hirohito reduced his work day from eight to four hours a day. He died of duodenal cancer 1/07/1989, 6:33 a.m., Tokyo, Japan. He had the distinction of becoming the longest reigning Emperor in the history of Japan, for 61 years. Less than four hours following his death, Prince Akihito received the imperial and state seals and replicas of two of the imperial treasures that symbolize the throne. The traditional vigil for the emperor lasted three months. Hirohito’s reign was called the Showa Era, or time of enlightened peace.
Link to Wikipedia biography