Japan’s emperor had to tell his people World War II was lost. He did so on a scratchy recording.

[Tony]

On the night of Aug. 14, 1945, the bespectacled Emperor of Japan walked into the second-floor room of the Household Ministry in Tokyo, where the technicians from the national radio station, NHK, had set up recording equipment.

Emperor Hirohito was 44. And for 3½ years, he had presided over the titanic struggle Japan had been waging with the U.S. and its allies since the attack on Pearl Harbor. https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2020/08/14/vj-day-japan-surrenders-hirohito-ends-wwii/