What Day Was V-J Day (end of WWII with Japan)?

About this date

Japan announced its surrender, effectively ending World War II, following the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki earlier that month and the Soviet Union's declaration of war on Japan.

This date is commemorated as V-J (Victory over Japan) Day, though the formal surrender documents were signed several weeks later aboard the USS Missouri.

Emperor Hirohito's radio broadcast announcing surrender was the first time most Japanese citizens had ever heard their emperor's voice, since he had not previously addressed the public directly over radio.

The formal surrender ceremony aboard the USS Missouri, held in Tokyo Bay roughly two weeks after this broadcast, is the event more precisely marked as the legal end of the war in some historical accounts.

Japan's post-war constitution, drafted largely under American occupation authority in the years following this surrender, included a still-debated clause renouncing the country's right to wage war.