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Japan | Historyworld

HISTORY OF JAPAN

including headings Migration in the north Pacific, Sumo, The Yamato clan, Shinto, Soga family and Buddhism, ...

Japan | CREATION STORIES

The Japanese story of creation leads not so much to the first man as to the first emperor - not surprisingly, since the legends are collected and written down early in the 8th century AD by command of the imperial family...

Japan seizes a chance | HISTORY OF THE FIRST WORLD WAR

Japan seizes a chance

Japan has a diplomatic reason for participating in the war, since she has signed in 1902 an Anglo-Japanese Alliance in which both nations agree to safeguard each other's interests in China and Korea.

However Japan...

Japan's blitzkrieg | THE SECOND WORLD WAR

Japan's blitzkrieg

Japan enters World War II with a ruthlessness unmatched by any other combatant, and achieves in a few months a blitzkrieg to rival anything achieved by the Germans. Even Hitler is not informed of the secret strike...

Japanese colour prints | HISTORY OF PRINTING

Japanese colour prints

Japan, playing a very early role in the story of printing, has for many centuries provided Buddhist pilgrims with simple woodcut images of holy figures. The technology is therefore in place to supply the more secular dem...

Russo-Japanese war | HISTORY OF RUSSIA

Russo-Japanese war

In a foretaste of Pearl Harbor nearly forty years later, a Japanese fleet launches a devastating surprise attack on Port Arthur in February 1904. Many Russian warships are destroyed. The rest are blockaded in the harbour...

The Japanese classics | HISTORY OF LITERATURE

The Japanese classics

The Heian period, with the Japanese capital at Kyoto, is distinguished by literature as elegant and subtle as the style of the court itself. As in China, poetry is here considered an essential element of civilized life....

Indian and Japanese castles | HISTORY OF INDIA - THE SUBCONTINENT

Indian and Japanese castles

By a coincidence of history some of the most spectacular castles of the world date from the same period in India and Japan. These buildings of the 16th and 17th century are fortified palaces, with superbly decorated pavi...

Indian and Japanese castles | HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE

Indian and Japanese castles

By a coincidence of history some of the most spectacular castles of the world date from the same period in India and Japan. These buildings of the 16th and 17th century are fortified palaces, with superbly decorated pavi...

Korea and Japan | HISTORY OF KOREA

Korea and Japan

Korea first suffers from Japanese expansionism during the reign of one of the most successful shoguns, Toyotomi Hideyoshi. Attempting to attack China through Korea, the Japanese invade the peninsula in 1592 and remain th...

Go in Japan | HISTORY OF SPORTS AND GAMES

Go in Japan

According to tradition,735 is the year in which Japan's popular and highly skilful board game, I-go (known in the west simply as go), is introduced to the country from China. The first contest of which there is hi...

The first Japanese texts | HISTORY OF LITERATURE

The first Japanese texts

A powerful influence reaching Japan from China (along with Buddhism, the bureaucracy of Confucianism and even the game of go) is Chinese literature and the Chinese script. When the first texts reach Japan, perhaps in the...

Christians in Japan | HISTORY OF THE JESUITS

Christians in Japan

The first European arrival in Japan is an accident. A Portuguese merchant vessel, bound for China, is blown in a storm to the southern tip of Kyushu. The strangers are welcomed. Particular interest is shown in the musket...

Amphibious war against Japan | THE SECOND WORLD WAR

Amphibious war against Japan

Victory in Europe, in May 1945, leaves the Allies free to concentrate on their remaining enemy, Japan. From the summer of 1942 Japan has been in control of a vast swathe of southeast Asia, captured in the months after th...

New Buddhist sects in Japan | HISTORY OF BUDDHISM

New Buddhist sects in Japan

One of Japan's most famous monuments is a vast bronze sculpture at Kamakura. Known as Daibutsu, and cast in 1252, it depicts Buddha. But this figure seated in peaceful meditation is not the historical Gautama Buddha. He...

Pottery and Tea Ceremony | HISTORY OF POTTERY AND PORCELAIN

Pottery and Tea Ceremony

Zen priests are linked with two very characteristic elements of Japanese culture: the exquisite simplicity of Japanese ceramics; and the polite formalities of the Tea Ceremony for which much of the pottery is designed....