Kanami and Zeami Motokiyo please the shogun with their theatrical performance, and his patronage begins the tradition of Japan's No theatre

The Golden Pavilion in Kyoto is built by the shogun Yoshimitsu as his own villa

The first Europeans reach Japan by accident, blown ashore in a storm

Oda Nobunaga takes power into his own hands, after ruling for a while through the Ashikaga shogun

The shogun's Tea Master awards a gold seal with the one word raku ('felicity') to a beautiful bowl, thus naming Japan's most famous ware

The warlord Tokugawa Ieyasu is awarded the title of shogun, beginning nearly three centuries of the Tokugawa shogunate

The Japanese are forbidden to leave their country, or foreigners to enter, at the start of more than two centuries of almost total isolation

The pleasure districts of Edo and Kyoto provide the delights of ukiyo-e, the 'floating world'

Japan's popular theatre, kabuki, develops as a form of café entertainment

Members of the Sakaida Kakiemon family are producing exquisitely decorated porcelain ware in Japan

Dutch traders purchase Kakiemon wares in Japan for import to the Netherlands

Japanese artist Kitagawa Utamaro is a master of colour woodcuts, often depicting the courtesan district of Edo

Hokusai begins to publish his famous colour-printed views of Mount Fuji

Commodore Matthew Perry, commanding a powerful US fleet, persuades the Japanese to open their country to western trade – ending their period of isolation

Japan and China go to war over Korea, with disastrous results for China

Japan's navy destroys the remains of China's fleet at Weihaiwei

At the end of the Sino-Japanese war China cedes to Japan the island of Taiwan, together with Port Arthur and the Liadong peninsula

The three-year Philippine-American War is brought to an end, and the Philippines become a US colony

A surprise Japanese attack on Russian warships in Port Arthur launches the Russo-Japanese War for influence in the Far East

The last Manchu emperor, Puyi, is placed on the throne at the age of two on the death of his uncle, the Guanxu emperor

The Empress Dowager Cixi dies the day after selecting the infant Puyi for the Chinese throne

Bernard Leach moves to Japan to study oriental traditions in the graphic arts

Bernard Leach discovers his skill and future craft at a raku party in Japan, where each guest is invited to throw a pot

Tibet declares its independence after the fall of the Qing dynasty and the end of imperial China

Yuan Shikai outlaws the Guomindang party in the republic of China, to give himself unchallenged power as president