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The event included 1940s music and presentations by Reps. Bob Filner, D-San Diego, and Duncan Hunter, R-San Diego, Assemblyman Nathan Fletcher, I-San Diego, and Mayor Jerry Sanders.

"This celebration encourages all veterans and hometown heroes to tell us about their experiences that day," said Capt. Will Hays, chairman of the Board of Directors of the Veterans Museum. "We want our young citizens to appreciate what they will learn from our elders and pass this along to future generations."

At 7 p.m., a bugler sounded taps outside the USS Midway Aircraft Carrier Museum.

Emperor Hirohito announced on Aug. 14, 1945, that Japan would lay down its arms, nearly four years after the attack on U.S. military forces in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and more than a decade after it began military operations in China and what used to be called Manchuria.

Hirohito's surrender, announced by radio to the Japanese people, came after the United States dropped atomic bombs on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Even after the fission explosions that killed more than 100,000 people, Japanese military leaders wanted to continue the war. Hirohito overruled them.

Ceremonies marking the end of the war take place on the second Sunday of August.

The official signing of the armistice took place on Sept. 2, 1945, aboard the battleship USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay.