Kyūjō Incident

Date: August 14, 1945 • Location: Futtsu, Japan

Kenji Hatanaka (pictured) and other Japanese military officers launched an attempted coup d'état to prevent the surrender of Japan.

Major Kenji Hatanaka was a Japanese military officer and one of the chief conspirators in the Kyūjō incident, a plot to seize the Imperial Palace and to prevent the broadcast of Emperor Hirohito's surrender speech announcing the end of World War II.