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History of Japan
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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The first human inhabitants of the Japanese archipelago have been traced to
the Paleolithic, around 38–39,000 years ago.[1] The Jōmon period, named after its cord-
marked pottery, was followed by the Yayoi period in the first millennium BC when new
inventions were introduced from Asia. During this period, the first known written
reference to Japan was recorded in the Chinese Book of Han in the first century AD.
Around the 3rd century BC, the Yayoi people from the continent immigrated to the
Japanese archipelago and introduced iron technology and agricultural civilization.
[2]
Because they had an agricultural civilization, the population of the Yayoi began to
grow rapidly and ultimately overwhelmed the Jōmon people, natives of the Japanese
archipelago who were hunter-gatherers.[3] Between the fourth and ninth centuries,
Japan's many kingdoms and tribes gradually came to be unified under a centralized
government, nominally controlled by the Emperor of Japan. The imperial
dynasty established at this time continues to this day, albeit in an almost entirely
ceremonial role. In 794, a new imperial capital was established at Heian-
kyō (modern Kyoto), marking the beginning of the Heian period, which lasted until 1185.
The Heian period is considered a golden age of classical Japanese culture. Japanese
religious life from this time and onwards was a mix of native Shinto practices
and Buddhism.
Over the following centuries, the power of the imperial house decreased, passing first to
great clans of civilian aristocrats — most notably the Fujiwara — and then to the military
clans and their armies of samurai. The Minamoto clan under Minamoto no
Yoritomo emerged victorious from the Genpei War of 1180–85, defeating their rival
military clan, the Taira. After seizing power, Yoritomo set up his capital in Kamakura and
took the title of shōgun. In 1274 and 1281, the Kamakura shogunate withstood
two Mongol invasions, but in 1333 it was toppled by a rival claimant to the shogunate,
ushering in the Muromachi period. During this period, regional warlords
called daimyō grew in power at the expense of the shōgun. Eventually, Japan
descended into a period of civil war. Over the course of the late 16th century, Japan
was reunified under the leadership of the prominent daimyō Oda Nobunaga and his
successor, Toyotomi Hideyoshi. After Toyotomi's death in 1598, Tokugawa
Ieyasu came to power and was appointed shōgun by the emperor. The Tokugawa
shogunate, which governed from Edo (modern Tokyo), presided over a prosperous and
peaceful era known as the Edo period (1600–1868). The Tokugawa shogunate
imposed a strict class system on Japanese society and cut off almost all contact with
the outside world.
Portugal and Japan came into contact in 1543, when the Portuguese became the first
Europeans to reach Japan by landing in the southern archipelago. They had a
significant impact on Japan, even in this initial limited interaction, introducing firearms to
Japanese warfare. The American Perry Expedition in 1853–54 more completely ended
Japan's seclusion; this contributed to the fall of the shogunate and the return of power
to the emperor during the Boshin War in 1868. The new national leadership of the
following Meiji era (1868–1912) transformed the isolated feudal island country into an
empire that closely followed Western models and became a great power. Although
democracy developed and modern civilian culture prospered during the Taishō
period (1912–1926), Japan's powerful military had great autonomy and overruled
Japan's civilian leaders in the 1920s and 1930s. The Japanese military invaded
Manchuria in 1931, and from 1937 the conflict escalated into a prolonged war with
China. Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 led to war with the United States and its
allies. Japan's forces soon became overextended, but the military held out in spite
of Allied air attacks that inflicted severe damage on population centers. Emperor
Hirohito announced Japan's surrender on 15 August 1945, following the atomic
bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the Soviet invasion of Manchuria.
The Allies occupied Japan until 1952, during which a new constitution was enacted in
1947 that transformed Japan into the constitutional monarchy and parliamentary
democracy it is today. After 1955, Japan enjoyed very high economic growth under the
governance of the Liberal Democratic Party, and became a world economic
powerhouse. Since the Lost Decade of the 1990s, Japanese economic growth has
slowed.

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