May 15 Incident
Also called: 5.15 Incident
On 15 May 1932 young naval officers stormed the prime minister’s residence and killed Prime Minister Inukai Tsuyoshi, bringing the era of party cabinets to an end.
Tokyo Asahi Shimbun · Public domain · Source
Amid the Depression and rural poverty, soldiers and right-wing activists who blamed the parties and the zaibatsu for ruining the country turned to terror in the name of “national reconstruction”. On 15 May 1932 young naval officers and army cadets burst into the prime minister’s residence and shot Prime Minister Inukai Tsuyoshi, who had been cautious about recognizing Manchukuo.
His successor, Admiral Saitō Makoto, a former Governor-General of Korea, formed a “national unity” cabinet, and the party cabinets that had ruled since 1924 never returned before Japan’s defeat. The assassins’ light sentences and the public sympathy they won only emboldened military interference in politics.