The Shimabara Rebellion was an uprising largely involving Japanesepeasants, most of them Christians, in 1637–1638 during the Edo period. It was also one of only a handful of instances of serious unrest during the relatively peaceful period of the Tokugawa shogunate's rule. In the wake of the Matsukura clan's construction of a new castle at Shimabara, taxes were drastically raised, which provoked anger from local peasants and lordless samurai. In addition, religious persecution against the local Christians exacerbated the discontent, which turned into open revolt in 1637. The Tokugawa Shogunate sent a force of over 125,000 troops to suppress the rebellion, and after a lengthy siege against the rebels at Hara Castle, defeated them. In the wake of the rebellion, the rebel leader Amakusa Shirō was beheaded, and persecution of Christianity strictly enforced. Japan's national seclusion policy was tightened, and formal persecution of Christianity continued until the 1850s. In the mid-1630s, the peasants of the Shimabara Peninsula and the Amakusa Islands, dissatisfied with overtaxation and suffering from the effects of famine, revolted against their lords. This was specifically in territory ruled by two lords: Matsukura Katsuie of the Shimabara Domain, and Terasawa Katataka of the Karatsu Domain. Though the rebellion is cast by many historians as a religious uprising, this does not address the issues of the discontent from the famine and overtaxation. (Full article...)
Flowering Plum Tree (after Hiroshige), a copy of the ukiyo-e woodblock print Plum Park in Kameido by the Japanese artist Hiroshige. Completed in 1887, this painting is one of several Japanese-influenced works created by Vincent van Gogh after the opening up of Japan. In his copy, van Gogh ignored the shading present in the trunk and background of Hiroshige's image, which there implied age, and instead used colours with more "passion" and "youthfulness".
A registration card for Louis Wijnhamer (1904–1975), an ethnic Dutch humanitarian who was captured soon after the Empire of Japan occupied the Dutch East Indies in March 1942. Prior to the occupation, many ethnic Europeans had refused to leave, expecting the Japanese occupation government to keep a Dutch administration in place. When Japanese troops took control of government infrastructure and services such as ports and postal services, 100,000 European (and some Chinese) civilians were interned in prisoner-of-war camps where the death rates were between 13 and 30 per cent. Wijnhamer was interned in a series of camps throughout Southeast Asia and, after the surrender of Japan, returned to what was now Indonesia, where he lived until his death.
Female internees practicing calisthenics at Manzanar War Relocation Center, Owens Valley, California. In 1943, photographer Ansel Adams followed an invitation by newly appointed camp director Ralph Merritt to photograph the everyday life of the Japanese American internees in the camp. Adams's intent was to "show how these people, suffering under a great injustice, (…) had overcome the sense of defeat and despair by building for themselves a vital community in an arid (but magnificent) environment."
Before the outbreak of World War I, German naval ships were located in the Pacific; Tsingtao developed into a major seaport while the surrounding Kiautschou Bay area was leased to Germany since 1898. During the war, Japanese and British Allied troops besieged the port in 1914 before capturing it from the German and Austro-Hungarian Central Powers, occupying the city and the surrounding region. It served as a base for the exploitation of the natural resources of Shandong province and northern China, and a "New City District" was established to furnish the Japanese colonists with commercial sections and living quarters. Tsingtao eventually reverted to Chinese rule by 1922.
The Japanese government-issued dollar was a form of currency issued between 1942 and 1945 for use within the territories of Singapore, Malaya, North Borneo, Sarawak and Brunei, under occupation by Imperial Japan during World War II. The currency, informally referred to as "banana money", was released solely in the form of banknotes, as metals were considered essential to the war effort. The languages used on the notes were reduced to English and Japanese. Each note bears a different obverse and reverse design, but all have a similar layout, and were marked with stamped block letters that begin with "M" for "Malaya". This 1944 one-hundred-dollar Japanese-issued banknote, depicting a Malay house with palm trees on the obverse, and a man with water buffaloes in a stream on the reverse, is part of the National Numismatic Collection at the Smithsonian Institution.
Other denominations: '"`UNIQ--templatestyles-0000000D-QINU`"'
Asahi Breweries is a Japanese global beer, spirits, soft drinks and food business group. This photograph, taken during the blue hour with a full moon, shows the headquarters of Asahi Breweries in Sumida, Tokyo, as viewed from the wharf on the Sumida River near Azuma Bridge. The Asahi Beer Hall, topped by the Asahi Flame, designed by Philippe Starck, is visible on the right, with the Tokyo Skytree in the background on the left.
The siege of Osaka was a series of battles undertaken by the Japanese Tokugawa shogunate against the Toyotomi clan, and ending in the clan's dissolution. Divided into two stages (the winter campaign and the summer campaign), and lasting from 1614 to 1615, the siege put an end to the last major armed opposition to the shogunate's establishment. This eight-metre-long (26 ft) painting, titled The Summer Battle of Osaka Castle and executed on a Japanese folding screen, illustrates Osaka Castle under siege, and was commissioned by the daimyoKuroda Nagamasa, who took a team of painters with him to the battlefield to record the event. The painting depicts 5071 people and 21 generals, and is held in the collection of Osaka Castle.
Prunus serrulata (Japanese Cherry) is a species of cherry native to Japan, Korea and China. Its flowers are produced in clusters of two to five together at nodes on short spurs in spring. They are white to pink, with five petals in the wild type tree.
Banknotes: Empire of Japan. Reproduction: National Numismatic Collection, National Museum of American History at the Smithsonian Institution
The Japanese-issued Netherlands Indies gulden was the currency issued by the Japanese Empire when it occupied the Dutch East Indies during World War II. Following the Dutch capitulation in March 1942, the Japanese closed all banks, seized assets and currency, and assumed control of the economy in the territory. They began issuing military banknotes, as had previously been done in other occupied territories. These were printed in Japan, but retained the name of the pre-war currency and replaced the Dutch gulden at par. From 1943 the military banknotes were replaced by identical bank-issued notes printed within the territory, and the currency was renamed the roepiah from 1944. The currency was replaced by the Indonesian rupiah in 1946, one year after the Japanese surrender and the country's independence.
This note, denominated half gulden, is part of the 1942 series.
Ema are small wooden plaques on which Shinto worshipers write their prayers or wishes. They are then left hanging up at a shrine where the kami (spirits or gods) can read them. These ema were placed at Meiji Shrine.
1870 - Telegrams started between Tokyo and Yokohama. (Japanese Date: Eighteenth Day of the Fourth Month, 1870)
1899 - The Bangkok Peace Conference is first held in the Hague.
1936 - In a crime that shocked Japan, Sada Abe strangled her lover Kichizo Ishida, cut off his genitals, and carried them around with her for several days until her arrest.
Kumeko Urabe (Japanese: 浦辺粂子), born Kimura Kume ((木村 くめ)), (October 5, 1902 – October 26, 1989) was a Japanese movie actress, one of the first in the country. She worked on stage and in film and television. Urabe was born in a rural part of Shizuoka Prefecture. She lived in several homes while growing up, as she relocated with her father, a Buddhist priest, among the temples to which he was assigned. Urabe completed her education in Numazu, and left school in 1919 to join a theatre company, touring under various stage names as an actor and dancer.
Tokyo, officially Tokyo Metropolis, is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan and located on the eastern side of the main island Honshū. The twenty-three special wards of Tokyo, each governed as a city, cover the area that was once the city of Tokyo in the eastern part of the prefecture, and total over 8 million people. The population of the prefecture exceeds 12 million. Tokyo is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family. Tokyo was originally known as Edo, meaning estuary. Its name was changed to Tokyo (Tōkyō: tō (east) + kyō (capital)) when it became the imperial capital in 1868. During the early Meiji period, the city was also called "Tōkei", an alternative pronunciation for the same Chinese characters representing "Tokyo". Some surviving official English documents use the spelling "Tokei". This pronunciation is now obsolete. Tokyo was originally a small fishing village named Edo. In 1457, Ōta Dōkan built Edo Castle. In 1590, Tokugawa Ieyasu made Edo his base and when he became shōgun in 1603, the town became the center of his nationwide military government. During the subsequent Edo period, Edo grew into one of the largest cities in the world with a population topping one million by the 18th century. It became the de facto capital of Japan even while the emperor lived in Kyoto, the imperial capital. After about 263 years, the shogunate was overthrown under the banner of restoring imperial rule.
Image 18A social hierarchy chart based on old academic theories. Such hierarchical diagrams were removed from Japanese textbooks after various studies in the 1990s revealed that peasants, craftsmen, and merchants were in fact equal and merely social categories. Successive shoguns held the highest or near-highest court ranks, higher than most court nobles. (from History of Japan)
Image 40A map of Japan's major cities, main towns and selected smaller centers (from Geography of Japan)
Image 41Samurai could kill a commoner for the slightest insult and were widely feared by the Japanese population. Edo period, 1798. (from History of Japan)
Image 42The word Nihon written in kanji (horizontal placement of characters). The text means "Japan" in Japanese. (from History of Japan)
Image 43Japanese experts inspect the scene of the alleged railway sabotage on South Manchurian Railway that led to the Mukden Incident and the Japanese occupation of Manchuria. (from History of Japan)
Image 44Tokugawa Ieyasu was the founder and first shōgun of the Tokugawa shogunate. (from History of Japan)
Image 45Traditional breakfast at a ryokan (from Culture of Japan)
Image 46Japanese archipelago with outlined islands (from Geography of Japan)
Image 64Map showing the territories of major daimyō families around 1570 CE (from History of Japan)
Image 65Minamoto no Yoritomo was the founder of the Kamakura shogunate in 1192. This was the first military government in which the shogun with the samurai were the de facto rulers of Japan. (from History of Japan)
Image 69Mount Aso 4 pyroclastic flow and the spread of Aso 4 tephra (90,000 to 85,000 years ago). The pyroclastic flow reached almost the whole area of Kyushu, and volcanic ash was deposited of 15 cm in a wide area from Kyushu to southern Hokkaido. (from Geography of Japan)
Image 78The Kuril Islands, with their Russian names. The borders of the Treaty of Shimoda (1855) and the Treaty of St. Petersburg (1875) are shown in red. Currently, all islands northeast of Hokkaido are administered by Russia. (from Geography of Japan)
Image 87Relief map of the land and the seabed of Japan. It shows the surface and underwater terrain of the Japanese archipelago. (from Geography of Japan)
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