Portal:Japan/Anniversaries/April/April 16

Events

1205 - The New Collection of Ancient and Modern Waka is completed. (Traditional Japanese Date: Twenty-sixth Day of the Third Month, 1205)
1906 - Japan initiates express train service with an express train from Shimbashi to Kobe. The trip took thirteen hours and 40 minutes.
1949 - Japan's first off-track betting facility opens in Kōrakuen, Tokyo.
1955 - The Mount Bota mine in Sasebo, Nagasaki collapses, killing 68.
1978 - Japan holds its first women's marathon at Lake Tama Field. Forty-nine women participated and 100,000 spectators turned out to watch.
1991 - Mikhail Gorbachev makes his first visit to Japan as the leader of the Soviet Union.

Births

1874 - Jōtarō Watanabe (d. 1936), general in the Imperial Japanese Army and victim of the February 26 Incident
1948 - Kazuyuki Sogabe (d. 2006), voice actor and guitarist
1971 - Seigo Yamamoto, race car driver
1973 - Hirofumi Nojima, voice actor
1973 - Bonnie Pink, singer-songwriter
1986 - Shinji Okazaki, footballer
1988 - Alisa Durbrow, model, actress, and singer
1991 - Yurie Midori, actress and model

Deaths

1972 - Yasunari Kawabata (b. 1899), Nobel Prize winning short story writer and novelist

Film and television

1997 - Gift begins airing on Fuji Television, starring Takuya Kimura and Shigeru Muroi
2007 - Operation Love begins airing on Fuji Television, starring Tomohisa Yamashita and Masami Nagasawa
2015 - I'm Home begins airing on TV Asahi, starring Takuya Kimura and Aya Ueto

Holidays, observances, and anniversaries