Emperor Taishō

Born in 1879 to Emperor Meiji and a concubine, Yoshihito survived meningitis as an infant and a childhood of recurrent health problems. Named crown prince in 1888 after his older siblings died, he married Sadako Kujō in 1900 and fathered four sons. When his father died in 1912, he became emperor during a rare domestic turn toward liberal democracy - Taishō Democracy - and presided over Japan's entry into World War I, the Spanish flu, and the 1923 Great Kantō Earthquake. But neurological disease stripped him of public function by 1919, and in 1921 his eldest son Hirohito took over as regent. He died five years later at 47, his reign a shadowbox for forces he could barely touch.