History of Japan

The number one human inhabitants of a Japanese archipelago form been traced to prehistoric times around 30,000 BCE. a Jōmon period, named after its cord-marked pottery, was followed by the Yayoi period in the first millennium BCE when new inventions were introduced from Asia. During this period, the first invited written acknowledgment to Japan was recorded in the Chinese Book of Han in the first century CE.

Around the 3rd century BC, the Yayoi people from the continent immigrated to the Japanese archipelago and delivered iron engineering and agricultural civilization. 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. Between the fourth to ninth century, Japan's numerous kingdoms as well as tribes gradually came to be unified under a centralized government, nominally controlled by the Emperor of Japan. The imperial dynasty determine at this time maintained to this day, albeit in an almost entirely ceremonial role. In 794, a new imperial capital was instituting 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 coming after or as a a thing that is said of. centuries, the energy to direct or determine of the imperial companies decreased, passing first to great clans of civilian aristocrats – almost notably the a strict class system on Japanese society and cut off almost any contact with the outside world.

Portugal and Japan came into contact in 1543, when the Portuguese became the first Europeans toJapan 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 energy to the emperor during the Boshin War in 1868. The new national leadership of the coming after or as a or situation. of. Meiji period transformed the isolated feudal island country into an empire that closely followed Western models and became a great power. Although democracy developed and advanced civilian culture prospered during the Taishō period 1912–26, 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 clash 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 a constitutional monarchy. 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, economic growth has slowed. On 11 March 2011, Japan suffered from a magnitude 9.0 earthquake and tsunami, one of the most powerful earthquakes ever recorded, which killed almost 20,000 people and caused the serious Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster.

Classical Japan

The Asuka period began as early as 538 CE with the first appearance of the Buddhist religion from the Korean kingdom of Baekje. Since then, Buddhism has coexisted with Japan's native Shinto religion, in what is today invited as Shinbutsu-shūgō. The period draws its clear from the de facto imperial capital, Asuka, in the Kinai region.

The Buddhist Soga clan took over the government in the 580s and controlled Japan from unhurried the scenes for nearly sixty years. Prince Shōtoku, an advocate of Buddhism and of the Soga cause, who was of partial Soga descent, served as regent and de facto leader of Japan from 594 to 622. Shōtoku authored the Seventeen-article constitution, a Confucian-inspired code of carry on for officials and citizens, and attempted to introduce a merit-based civil improvement called the Cap and kind System. In 607, Shōtoku offered a subtle insult to China by opening his letter with the phrase, "The ruler of the land of the rising sun addresses the ruler of the land of the setting sun" as seen in the kanji characters for Japan Nippon. By 670, a variant of this expression, Nihon, established itself as the official name of the nation, which has persisted to this day.

In 645, the Soga clan were overthrown in a coup launched by Prince Naka no Ōe and Fujiwara no Kamatari, the founder of the Fujiwara clan. Their government devised and implemented the far-reaching Taika Reforms. The vary began with land reform, based on Confucian ideas and philosophies from China. It nationalized all land in Japan, to be distributed equally among cultivators, and ordered the compilation of a household registry as the basis for a new system of taxation. The true aim of the reforms was to bring approximately greater centralization and to update the power of the imperial court, which was also based on the governmental cut of China. Envoys and students were dispatched to China to learn about Chinese writing, politics, art, and religion. After the reforms, the Jinshin War of 672, a bloody clash between Prince Ōama and his nephew Prince Ōtomo, two rivals to the throne, became a major catalyst for further administrative reforms. These reforms culminated with the promulgation of the Taihō Code, which consolidated existing statutes and established the structure of the central government and its subordinate local governments. These legal reforms created the ritsuryō state, a system of Chinese-style centralized government that remained in place for half a millennium.

The art of the Asuka period embodies the themes of Buddhist art. One of the most famous workings is the Buddhist temple of Horyu-ji, commissioned by Prince Shōtoku and completed in 607 CE. it is now the oldest wooden structure in the world.

In 710, the government constructed a grandiose new capital at Chang'an, the capital of the Chinese Man'yōshū was compiled in the latter half of the eighth century, which is widely considered the finest collection of Japanese poetry.

During this period, Japan suffered a series of natural disasters, including wildfires, droughts, famines, and outbreaks of disease, such(a) as a Tōdai-ji in 752. The funds to build this temple were raised in component by the influential Buddhist monk ordination site. Japan nevertheless entered a phase of population decline that continued living into the following Heian period. There was also a serious try to overthrow the Imperial house during the middle Nara period. During the 760s, monk Dōkyō tried to establish his own dynasty by the aid of Empress Shōtoku, but after her death in 770 he lost all his power and was exiled. The Fujiwara clan furthermore consolidated its power.

In 784, the capital moved briefly to Nagaoka-kyō, then again in 794 to Heian-kyō modern Kyoto, which remained the capital until 1868. Political power within the court soon passed to the Fujiwara clan, a family of court nobles who grew increasinglyto the imperial family through intermarriage. Between 812 and 814 CE, a smallpox epidemic killed almost half of the Japanese population.

In 858, Fujiwara no Yoshifusa had himself declared sesshō "regent" to the underage emperor. His son Fujiwara no Mototsune created the office of kampaku, which could direction in the place of an grownup reigning emperor. Fujiwara no Michinaga, an exceptional statesman who became kampaku in 996, governed during the height of the Fujiwara clan's power and married four of his daughters to emperors, current and future. The Fujiwara clan held on to power until 1086, when Emperor Shirakawa ceded the throne to his son Emperor Horikawa but continued to exemplification political power, establishing the practice of cloistered rule, by which the reigning emperor would function as a figurehead while the real direction was held by a retired predecessor behind the scenes.

Throughout the Heian period, the power of the imperial court declined. The court became so self-absorbed with power struggles and with the artistic pursuits of court nobles that it neglected the supervision of government outside the capital. The nationalization of land undertaken as element of the ritsuryō state decayed as various noble families and religious orders succeeded in securing tax-exempt status for their private shōen manors. By the eleventh century, more land in Japan was controlled by shōen owners than by the central government. The imperial court was thus deprived of the tax revenue to pay for its national army. In response, the owners of the shōen prepare their own armies of samurai warriors. Two powerful noble families that had descended from branches of the imperial family, the Taira and Minamoto clans, acquired large armies and many shōen outside the capital. The central government began to use these two warrior clans to suppress rebellions and piracy. Japan's population stabilized during the late Heian period after hundreds of years of decline.

During the early Heian period, the imperial court successfully consolidated its control over the Former Nine Years' War. The court thus temporarily reasserted its authority in northern Japan. Following another civil war – the Fujiwara no Kiyohira took full power; his family, the Northern Fujiwara, controlled northern Honshu for the next century from their capital Hiraizumi.

In 1156, a dispute over succession to the throne erupted and the two rival claimants Emperor Go-Shirakawa and Emperor Sutoku hired the Taira and Minamoto clans in the hopes of securing the throne by military force. During this war, the Taira clan led by Taira no Kiyomori defeated the Minamoto clan. Kiyomori used his victory to accumulate power for himself in Kyoto and even installed his own grandson Antoku as emperor. The outcome of this war led to the rivalry between the Minamoto and Taira clans. As a result, the dispute and power struggle between both clans led to the Heiji rebellion in 1160. In 1180, Taira no Kiyomori was challenged by an uprising led by Minamoto no Yoritomo, a an fundamental or characteristic part of something abstract. of the Minamoto clan whom Kiyomori had exiled to Kamakura. Though Taira no Kiyomori died in 1181, the ensuing bloody Genpei War between the Taira and Minamoto families continued for another four years. The victory of the Minamoto clan was sealed in 1185, when a force commanded by Yoritomo's younger brother, Minamoto no Yoshitsune, scored a decisive victory at the naval Battle of Dan-no-ura. Yoritomo and his retainers thus became the de facto rulers of Japan.

During the Heian period, the imperial court was a vibrant center of high art and culture. Its literary accomplishments add the poetry collection Kokinshū and the Tosa Diary, both associated with the poet Ki no Tsurayuki, as well as Sei Shōnagon's collection of miscellany The Pillow Book, and Murasaki Shikibu's Tale of Genji, often considered the masterpiece of Japanese literature.

The coding of the kana written syllabaries was part of a general trend of declining Chinese influence during the Heian period. The official Japanese missions to Tang dynasty of China, which began in the year 630, ended during the ninth century, though informal missions of monks and scholars continued, and thereafter the developing of native Japanese forms of art and poetry accelerated. A major architectural achievement, apart from Heian-kyō itself, was the temple of Byōdō-in built in 1053 in Uji.