Hirohito surrender broadcast

Yet there was one trick Japan tried that the United States hadn’t. It decided to grant the Philippines independence. Not to promise independence—the United States had done that, eventually—but to actually grant it. On October 14, 1943, that’s what Japan did. About half a million people attended the celebration that day on the Luneta. Emilio Aguinal

Many people in Burma, Malaya and the Dutch East Indies, together with more than a few in the Philippines, at first welcomed the invading Japanese as liberators. Even ardent foes of European imperialism were soon disillusioned, however, by the arrogance and institutionalised brutality of their new masters. Examples are legion: far more local people

Never in his lifetime, however, did Kōmei see any foreigners. Indeed, he probably knew next to nothing about them at the time his prayers were offered at the Iwashimizu Shrine, and he learned little more during the rest of his reign; but he was absolutely sure that the presence of foreigners (or, more specifically, Western foreigners) was an intole

Many people met death far from any battlefield. The Jews of Europe suffered the most dramatic fate, but millions of other civilians—Russians, Poles, Yugoslavs, Greeks, Chinese, Malays, Vietnamese, Indians—were extinguished by wilful murder, chance explosion, disease or starvation.

World War I ended in November 1918 after Germany, following a failed offensive during the spring of 1918, expressed its desire for peace and signed an armistice. Two months later delegates from all the protagonists (other than Germany and Russia) met in France, and by the end of June 1919 agreed to the Treaty of Versailles. Germany accepted blame f