Emperor Emeritus of Japan Akihito celebrates his 90th birthday
On December 23, Emperor Emeritus of Japan Akihito celebrates his 90th birthday, RIA Novosti reports. The Imperial Household Administration posted a special communiqué and a schedule of congratulations on its website.
The Emperor Emeritus will receive congratulations from family members and department employees. He will also be congratulated by Prime Minister of the Land of the Rising Sun Fumio Kishida, representatives of the Upper and Lower Houses of Parliament.
Akihito became the first emperor in 202 years to abdicate the throne as Emperor of Japan. In 2019, he passed on the Chrysanthemum Throne (the Western name for the throne of the Emperor of Japan) to his eldest son, Crown Prince Naruhito.
Emperor Emeritus Akihito also became the first whose reign began after the adoption of the 1947 Constitution. The Constitution defined the emperor's status as the "symbol of the nation", without mentioning his divine origin. According to the survey, over 80% of the Japanese believed that the Emperor Emeritus coped with this role. During his reign, he tried to be no different from the people.
Akihito first broke the centuries-old tradition, according to which emperors and princes of the blood took as wives only girls of aristocratic origin, by marrying in 1959 Michiko Shoda, the daughter of the head of a large flour-grinding company.
The desire for lasting peace and the memory of those killed in the war became the main motives of his activities. That is why he often visited the battlefields of World War II to personally honor the memory of those killed.
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