On this day in 1945, Emperor Hirohito of Japan announces the news of his country's unconditional surrender in World War II over a radio broadcast to the Japanese people.
After meeting with the Soviet Union in Potsdam, near Berlin, to determine post-war terms for defeated Germany, the governments of the United States and Great Britain (together with China) issued an ultimatum to the Japanese government in late July 1945. It offered a simple choice: surrender unconditionally to the Allies in World War II, or risk total annihilation. In their carefully worded reply, the Japanese failed to capitulate completely, and on August 6, the U.S. B-29 bomber Enola Gay dropped the world's first deployed atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Three days later, another such bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. The threat of further nuclear attacks drove Japanese officials on August 10 to accept the terms put forth by the Potsdam Declaration and submit their unconditional surrender.
1 comment:
Was that title supposed to be 64 YEARS ago?
Didn't think I would catch it, did you??
:)
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