Shōwa Day

Showa Day (昭和の日, Shōwa no Hi) is a public holiday in Japan held on April 29.

April 29 was subsequently no longer celebrated as The Emperor's Birthday but instead as Greenery Day, part of Japan's Golden Week.

After a series of failed legislative attempts beginning in 2000, the April 29 holiday was finally renamed Shōwa Day in 2007 with support from the ruling coalition composed of the Liberal Democratic Party and Komeito, and the largest opposition Democratic Party of Japan.

"[4] According to the then-main opposition party, the Democratic Party of Japan (which backed the bill for the first time after many years of refusal), the holiday encourages public reflection on the turbulent 63 years of Hirohito's reign rather than glorifying the emperor himself.

[5] Hirohito's reign saw, among other things, the end of the Taishō Democracy, the 1931 Japanese invasion of Manchuria, a period of "government by assassination" including the attempted coups of May 15, 1932 and February 26, 1936, the rise of the totalitarian Taisei Yokusankai, World War II, atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the post-war occupation, the Anpo protests, the 1964 Summer Olympics and Paralympics in Tokyo, the North Korean abductions of Japanese citizens, and the Japanese post-war economic miracle.