Hirohito delivered Japan's 1945 surrender broadcast. He was Japan's emperor from 1926 until his death in 1989 and was known posthumously in Japan by the name Emperor Shōwa.
The broadcast, transmitted on August 15, 1945, announced that Japan would accept the terms of the Potsdam Declaration. It followed days of crisis after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the Soviet Union's entry into the war against Japan. Hirohito's intervention helped break a deadlock among Japanese leaders who disagreed about whether to surrender.
The speech is often called the Gyokuon-hōsō, or Jewel Voice Broadcast. Its formal style avoided a simple conversational declaration of defeat, so some listeners did not immediately understand its meaning. The emperor later remained on the throne during the Allied occupation, while Japan was transformed into a constitutional monarchy.