Top Photo: American servicemen and women gather in front of "Rainbow Corner" Red Cross club in Paris to celebrate the unconditional surrender of the Japanese. August 15, 1945. National Archives. Records of the Office of the Chief Signal Officer. 111-SC-210241

From July 19 through August 2, 1945, the leaders of the United States, United Kingdom, and Soviet Union met at Potsdam to determine the postwar order and how to administer defeated Germany. During the Potsdam Conference deliberations, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin also agreed that the Soviet Union would enter the war against Imperial Japan 90 days after the German surrender on May 8.

On July 26, American President Harry S. Truman, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Chiang Kai-shek, the leader of the Chinese Nationalist government, issued the Potsdam Declaration, which outlined the surrender terms for Japan. Among the terms, the document called on the government of Japan “to proclaim now the unconditional surrender of all Japanese armed forces” or else face “prompt and utter destruction” by the Allies. In the United States, the absence of any Japanese reply to the Potsdam Declaration was seen as a rejection of Allied terms.

In the Pacific events moved quickly. The United states dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima on August 6. Two days later, the Soviet Union declared war on Japan and gave its support to the terms of the Potsdam Declaration. The next day, August 9, the Red Army invaded Manchuria, and a second atomic bomb hit Nagasaki. In Manila, General Douglas MacArthur alerted his commanders to hold their units in readiness for the immediate occupation of Japan and Korea, a plan code-named “Blacklist.”

On the night of August 9, Japanese Emperor Hirohito met with his cabinet and made the momentous decision to accept the terms of the Potsdam Declaration. Japan’s capitulation would kick off several tense weeks of diplomatic exchanges, ceasefire orders, negotiations, initial occupation operations—and, ultimately, a formal surrender ceremony on September 2, 1945.

Working through the Swiss Government, the Japanese Foreign Ministry on August 10 transmitted to the Allies that Japan would surrender unconditionally. The Foreign Ministry, however, also stipulated their understanding that the declaration in no way “prejudices the prerogatives of His Majesty as a sovereign ruler.”

At Truman’s direction, and on behalf of the Allied governments, US Secretary of State James Byrnes conveyed on August 12 that upon Japan’s surrender, “the authority of the Emperor and the Japanese Government” would be subject to the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers (SCAP). The United States called on Hirohito to issue orders to all commands to cease fire, end active operations, and transport prisoners of war and civilian internees to places of safety.

On August 14, the Japanese Foreign Ministry accepted those terms, and that evening, Hirohito recorded a radio address announcing the surrender. Japanese officers would try to seize the recording, but the attempted coup collapsed.

Truman announced Japan’s intention to surrender to the American public on August 14 at 7:00 p.m. Washington, D.C., time; not long after, Hirohito’s address was broadcast in Japan at noon local time on August 15. Although the formal surrender ceremony wouldn’t take place until September 2, celebrations erupted across the United States and the globe as World War II was finally brought to an end.