Japanese Prime Minister Hideki Tojo is executed, December 23, 1948
Tojo, viewed worldwide as the Hitler of Japan, had been the architect of the Japanese war effort as prime minister from October 1941 until July 1944. He oversaw the surprise attacks that began the war, and issued a mandate that POWs were expendable; more than 11,000 of 27,465 Americans held in Japanese POW camps die there; of the 93,941 Americans captured by the Germans, 92,820 survived. Before the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, Tojo accepted full responsibility for his actions during the war. Convicted of seven counts of war crimes, he was sentenced to die by hanging.