(1926–89), in Japanese history, the period comprising the reign of the emperor Hirohito. The first part of this period, from Hirohito's enthronement in 1926 to the end of World War II in 1945, is known as the early Shōwa period. The name Shōwa means “Bright Peace” in Japanese. The Shōwa period was preceded by the Taishō period (1912–26) and was followed by the Heisei period (1989– ), though none of these periods is widely used to designate the 20th-century history of Japan. The term Shōwa literature, however, does denote a distinct phase in Japanese literature from about 1924 until the outbreak of World War II in 1939, and the Great Depression of the 1930s, which was particularly severe in Japan, is referred to as the Shōwa Depression there.