Prince Mikasa (三笠宮崇仁親王, Mikasa-no-miya Takahito Shinnō?, born 2 December 1915) is a member of the Imperial House of Japan. He is the fourth and youngest son of Emperor Taishō and Empress Teimei, and is the only surviving paternal uncle of Emperor Akihito. His eldest brother was Emperor Shōwa (Hirohito). With the death of his sister-in-law, Princess Takamatsu (Kikuko), on 17 December 2004, he became the oldest living member of the Imperial House of Japan. After serving as a junior cavalry officer in the Japanese Imperial Army during World War II, the prince embarked upon a postwar career as a scholar and part-time lecturer in Middle Eastern studies and Semitic languages.
Read more about Prince Mikasa: Early Life, Marriage, Post-war Career, Titles and Styles, Issue, Ancestry
Famous quotes containing the word prince:
“When Prince William [later King William IV] was at Cork in 1787, an old officer ... dined with him, and happened to say he had been forty years in the service. The Prince with a sneer asked what he had learnt in those forty years. The old gentleman justly offended, said, “Sir, I have learnt, when I am no longer fit to fight, to make as good a retreat as I can” —and walked out of the room.”
—Horace Walpole (1717–1797)