Japan

In 1926, the second “restoration” of the Imperial Japanese throne occurred. The Showa, or peace, era, would be anything but peaceful. Emperor Hirohito was a gentle man who preferred marine biology to international politics. His reign would last longer than any other national leader of World War II.

In 1942, The first atomic pile, a sustained controllable nuclear chain reaction, came online in Chicago. Scientist and inventor Enrico Fermi remarked, “This will be remembered as the darkest day in history,“ referring to both the atomic pile and that day’s announcement of Nazi death camps operating in occupied Europe. Actually, most people have no knowledge of that day; they remember the ultimate achievement that began on that date - the atomic bomb.

Huge numbers of Allied POWs were captured by the Japanese between December 1941 and May 1942.

Deep racial hatred, led many Allied soldiers to prefer death to capture. But the large numbers of soldiers surrendered by their commanders in the Philippines and Singapore did not have much choice. They entered captivity at the start of the war, and only about half of them would leave the POW camps alive.