Just hours before the radio broadcast of Emperor Hirohito's announcement to the Japanese people that their government had accepted the military's unconditional surrender in World War II, a coup d'etat was being hatched with one of the aims being to steal the master records and stop the airing at all costs.

The attempted coup, known as the Kyujo Incident, happened after midnight on Aug. 14, 1945 after Emperor Hirohito, posthumously known as Emperor Showa, recorded the Imperial Rescript of Surrender inside the Imperial Palace to announce Japan's capitulation to the Allied forces.

Emperor Hirohito had decided to accept the conditions of the Potsdam Declaration laid out by the Allies at an Imperial staff meeting on Aug. 14 inside a bomb shelter at the Imperial Palace.