Japan Through the Ages: A Walk Through 1,200 Years of History
The same patch of central Kyoto where Emperor Kanmu laid out his new capital in 794 is where, in 1947, […]
History & Culture
The ideas, policies, and customs that shaped Japan — told as stories, not textbook entries.
Edo: 268 Years of Peace No One Quite Believed Would Last
Between the rifle smoke clearing at Sekigahara in October 1600 and the rifle smoke rising at Toba-Fushimi in January 1868,
Heisei: Thirty Years of Lost Decades, Disasters, and the Japan Most Visitors Actually Saw
On the last trading day of 1989, the Nikkei 225 closed at 38,915.87. That number then fell, kept falling, and
Muromachi Era: When Yoshimasa Burned Kyoto and Built the Silver Pavilion
On the morning of 27 May 1467, in the streets north-east of the Imperial Palace in Kyoto, two warlords called
Showa: Sixty-Three Years That Took Japan From War to Walkman
On the night of 14 August 1945, palace technicians in Tokyo recorded a four-and-a-half-minute speech onto two small phonograph discs.
Azuchi-Momoyama: Thirty-Five Years That Invented Modern Japan
In the spring of 1591, with cherry trees flowering in the inner garden of his Kyoto palace at Jurakudai, Toyotomi
Meiji: How Japan Industrialised in 44 Years (and Got Away With It)
On 6 April 1868, a fifteen-year-old emperor stood at the Kyoto Imperial Palace and signed a document of five sentences
Taisho: Fourteen Years of Democracy, Jazz, and the Earthquake That Killed All Three
At 11 hours, 58 minutes, 32 seconds on the morning of 1 September 1923, the seabed off Sagami Bay shrugged
Kamakura Era: When the Warriors Took Over and the Mongols Tried to Stop Them
On the night of 15 August 1281, a typhoon hit the western coast of Kyushu and tore apart roughly 4,000
Sengoku: 136 Years of War, Three Unifiers, and the Country That Came Out of It
On 27 May 1467 a small private war broke out in Kyoto over which boy would inherit the title of