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Japan

300 BCE – 2000 CE

The full arc of the Japanese archipelago — from the Yayoi and the imperial court through the shogunates to the modern nation.

928 events · 752 people · 13 eras

Key events

1. Ōnin War1467 CE
   The Ōnin War , also known as the Upheaval of Ōnin and Ōnin-Bunmei war, was a civil war that lasted from 1467 to 1477, during the Muromachi period in Japan. Ōnin refers to the Japanese era during which the war started; the war ended during the Bunmei era. A dispute between a high official, Hosokawa Katsumoto, and a regional lord, Yamana Sōzen, escalated into a nationwide civil war involving the Ashikaga shogunate and a number of daimyō in many regions of Japan.
2. Battle of Sekigahara1600 CE
   The Battle of Sekigahara was an important battle in Japan which occurred on October 21, 1600 in what is now Gifu Prefecture, Japan, at the end of the Sengoku period.
3. Siege of Osaka1614 CE
   The siege of Osaka was a series of battles undertaken by the Japanese Tokugawa shogunate against the Toyotomi clan, and ending in that clan's destruction. Divided into two stages, the winter campaign and the summer campaign, it lasted from 1614 to 1615. The siege put an end to the last major armed opposition to the establishment of the Tokugawa shogunate. The end of the conflict is sometimes called the Genna Armistice , because the era name was changed from Keichō to Genna immediately following the siege.
4. Convention of Kanagawa1864 CE
   The Convention of Kanagawa, also known as the Kanagawa Treaty or the Japan–US Treaty of Peace and Amity , was a treaty signed between the United States and the Tokugawa Shogunate on March 31, 1854. Signed under threat of force, it effectively meant the end of Japan's 220-year-old policy of national seclusion by opening the ports of Shimoda and Hakodate to American vessels. It also ensured the safety of American castaways and established the position of an American consul in Japan. The treaty precipitated the signing of similar treaties establishing diplomatic relations with other Western powers.
5. Treaty of Shimonoseki1895 CE
   The Treaty of Shimonoseki , also known as the Treaty of Maguan in China or the Treaty of Bakan in Japan, was signed in Shimonoseki, Japan, on April 17, 1895, between the Empire of Japan and the Qing dynasty. The treaty ended the First Sino-Japanese War, in which the Japanese decisively defeated the Chinese land and naval forces. The treaty was signed at the Shunpanrō hotel by Count Itō Hirobumi and Viscount Mutsu Munemitsu for Japan and Li Hongzhang and his son Li Jingfang on behalf of China.
6. Battle of Lake Khasan1938 CE
   The Battle of Lake Khasan, also known as the Changkufeng Incident, was an attempted military incursion by Manchukuo, a Japanese puppet state, into territory claimed and controlled by the Soviet Union. The incursion, which occurred from 29 July to 11 August 1938, was founded in the Japanese belief that the Soviet Union had misinterpreted the demarcation of the boundary based on the Treaty of Peking between Imperial Russia and Qing China, and had subsequently tampered with the demarcation markers. Japanese forces occupied the disputed area but withdrew after heavy fighting and a diplomatic settlement.
7. Japan Air Lines Flight 1231985 CE
   Japan Air Lines Flight 123 was a scheduled domestic passenger flight from Tokyo to Osaka, Japan. On the evening of Monday, August 12, 1985, the Boeing 747 flying the route suffered a severe structural failure and explosive decompression 12 minutes after takeoff. After flying under minimal control for 32 minutes, the plane crashed in the area of Mount Takamagahara, 100 kilometres from Tokyo.
8. Tokyo subway sarin attack1995 CE
   The Tokyo subway sarin attack was a domestic chemical terrorist attack perpetrated on 20 March 1995, in Tokyo, Japan, by members of the Aum Shinrikyo cult. In five coordinated attacks, the perpetrators released sarin, a nerve agent, on three lines of the Tokyo Metro during rush hour, killing 14 people, severely injuring 50, and causing temporary vision problems for nearly 1,000 others. The attack was directed against trains passing through Kasumigaseki and Nagatachō, where the National Diet is headquartered in Tokyo.
9. Battle of Dan-no-ura1185 CE
   The Battle of Dan-no-ura was a major sea battle of the Genpei War, occurring at Dan-no-ura, in the Kanmon Straits off the southern tip of Honshū. On April 25, 1185, the fleet of the Minamoto ('Genji') clan, led by general Minamoto no Yoshitsune, defeated the fleet of the Taira clan (Heike). The morning rip tide was an advantage for the Taira, but turned to their disadvantage in the afternoon. The young Emperor Antoku was one of those who died among the Taira nobles.
10. Honnō-ji Incident1582 CE
    The Honnō-ji Incident was the attempted assassination of Japanese daimyo Oda Nobunaga at Honnō-ji in Kyoto in 1582. Nobunaga was on the verge of unifying the country, but died by seppuku in the unexpected rebellion of his vassal Akechi Mitsuhide.
11. Great Hanshin Earthquake1995 CE
    The Kobe earthquake, also known as the Great Hanshin Earthquake , occurred on January 17, 1995, at 05:46:53 JST in the southern part of Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan, including the region of Hanshin. It measured 6.9 on the moment magnitude scale and had a maximum intensity of 7 on the JMA Seismic Intensity Scale. The tremors lasted for approximately 20 seconds. The focus of the earthquake was located 17 km beneath its epicenter, on the northern end of Awaji Island, 20 km away from the center of the city of Kobe.
12. Shimonoseki Campaign1864 CE
    The Shimonoseki campaign was a series of military engagements in 1863 and 1864, fought to control the Shimonoseki Straits of Japan by joint naval forces from the United Kingdom, France, the Netherlands, and the United States, against the Japanese feudal domain of Chōshū, which took place off and on the coast of Shimonoseki, Japan.

Notable people

• Franklin Delano Roosevelt1882 CE – 1945 CE
• Harry S. Truman1884 CE – 1972 CE
• Hirohito1901 CE – 1989 CE
• Franklin Pierce1804 CE – 1869 CE
• Haruki Murakami1949 CE –
• Douglas MacArthur1880 CE – 1964 CE
• Oda Nobunaga1534 CE – 1582 CE
• Tokugawa Ieyasu1543 CE – 1616 CE
• Emperor Meiji1852 CE – 1912 CE
• Toyotomi Hideyoshi1537 CE – 1598 CE
• Emperor Meiji1852 CE – 1912 CE
• Hideki Tojo1884 CE – 1948 CE

Cultural works

Eras spanning this view

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• Heian Japan
• China
• East Asia

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Events from Wikipedia/Wikidata (CC-BY-SA); base map © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL); era boundaries are a hand-curated set in v1. Spotted a mistake? Email [email protected].