Japan Culture and History Travel Tour

also Called as NIPPON for the Japanese


the magic of Oriental life an culture is Japan
one of the oldest and greatest civilization in the world
and very rich of history events and a punch of beautiful
places to visit and travel to with a very friendly and organized People of Japan

History of Japan

Japan was founded in the seventh century BC by the ancestral Emperor Jinmu. Over the centuries, V and VI, the Chinese calligraphic and Buddhism were introduced along with other Chinese customs through the Korean peninsula or directly from China. The official ruling emperors were, but the real power remained generally in the hands of powerful nobles cuts, regents or shogun (military governors). During the sixteenth century, traders from Portugal, Holland, England and Spain came to Japan and founded Christian missions. In the early seventeenth century, the shogunate became suspicious of the missions, considering a precursor of military conquest by European forces. As a measure of protection, Japan ended all relations with the outside world except for limited contacts with Chinese and Dutch merchants in the city of Nagasaki. This isolation lasted for 251 years until 1854, when U.S. Commodore Matthew Perry forced the opening of Japan to the West under the Treaty of Kanagawa.

The Japanese history can be divided into 5 major periods

1 - Prehistory

The emergence of the human species in the Japanese archipelago took place during the Paleolithic, some 30,000 or 40,000 years. Confirmations many remains from 25,000 years ago. This period was the most important. We know specifically the lives of the inhabitants of the archipelago from the Jomon period, which began about 12,000 years ago. The culture of the Jomon people was similar in all the islands, from Hokkaido to Okinawa. Subsisted by hunting, fishing, collecting fruits or grains, and thanks to an early cereal agriculture. One of the particularities of this culture were the Jomon pottery, named for the drawings of rope on its surface. During the Yayoi period the Japanese archipelago has been the influence of external cultures as northern Siberia, the southern Taiwan, the Philippines or distant islands of the Pacific Ocean, the largest of the west, from the Korean peninsula and mainland China. The Yayoi period began with the importation of the art of cultivation and irrigation of rice from Korea or China. It is assumed that the beginning of this period was during the third century BCE. The new lifestyle is extinguish quickly in Kyushu, Shikoku and Honshu. Historians of ancient China was called the Wa area. They noted that the kingdoms of the small tributaries of Wa were Han Empire in the first century and the next rule in the third century. Yamatai-KOKU (KOKU = country) of the third century was a confederation of many smaller countries, but its scope is under debate among historians.
But the inhabitants of Hokkaido and northern Honshu have not adopted the system of rice cold water habitat. The village is called emishi, ezo, or Ainu (Ainu or Japanese). The period Zokujomon (Jomon continued) continued until the seventh century in Japan.
The people of Okinawa were influenced by the Yayoi culture. But they did not take the rice and water-dependent marine products. Kaizuka period lasted until the twelfth century in Okinawa. It is called the Kofun tombs of former local chiefs in Kyushu, Shikoku and Honshu. In the Kofun period, from the third century to the seventh century, Kofun showed the emergence of local political power. The various forms of Kofun and the like are considered as the sign of the state of emergency Yamato, United States of Japan. But there are differing opinions as to whether this period was a sign of local independence.

2 - Old Age

Chinese historians recorded that a number of kings of Wa, as conquerors of many countries, they wanted the approval of the hegemony over Korea in the V. century Nihonshoki, history written in the eighth century, detailed records of the period. However, scholars do not agree on the reliability of Shoki.
In V or VI century, Buddhism and Confucianism are arriving from China and Korea. The government of Yamato received and protected Buddhism as a new religion.
The inhabitants of Okinawa and Hokkaido were not influenced by the Kofun culture.
Asuka period until the end of the sixth century, the royal power was consolidated. The palaces are moved each time a new king occupied the throne. Through the reforms in China, developed a system linked to the bureaucratic system of clans. The major clans and the royal family built Buddhist temples. The buildings and sculptures are an example of religious art of the first sophisticated civilization in Japan.
On the Korean peninsula, Japan (Wa) and a Korean (Baekje) joined forces and fought against China (Tang Dynasty | Tang) and another Korean (Silla). The Japanese army was defeated by Tang at the Battle of Hasusuki no E, 663. Japan lost its influence in Korea after the war. Exiles who fled the territory of Baekje ruinous immigrated to Japan. Wa changed its name to Nippon (Japan) in this period and has called her royal emperors since.

Nara period

710 was established in the new capital city of Nara. The level and distribution of the city were an imitation of those used in cities chinas.En the Nara period, the code (Ritsuryo) political institutions and regulating various aspects of economy and society. The state made the records. Government officials were handling the administration of documents within the central and local offices according to the code. The powerful clans and royal family monopolized the top of the hierarchy. The clan was the most important Fujiwara clan. Often boats were sent to Tang diplomats and students to learn from the institutions, religions and culture of China. The inhabitants of Hokkaido and northern Honshu were called Emishi. Between Japan and the tribes Emishi were repeated wars.

Heian Period

The capital was moved in 794 to the new capital city of Heian (Heian-kyo), which is called Kyoto today. Japan intensified its invasion of the territory Emishi at the end of the eighth century and the beginning of the ninth century, but abandoned the conquest on the road in front of resistance. The tribe was assimilated independitentes of Emishi gradually until the end of the Heian period of conflict between local influential. Throughout the period of Nara, and the first part of the Heian period, the Chinese influence on Japanese culture was very strong. Later, around the ninth and tenth centuries, the Japanese culture with a developed characters, reaching the peak of their civilization.

3 - Middle Ages

However, the militarism of the regions north of Yamato, in constant war with the Ainu of northern archipelago, a violent civil war year 1156. Seguidilla followed a war that brought great instability, and where the overall process (shogun) achieved a high profile. Finally, the year 1183 the general Minamoto Yorimoto Kyoto took by force and threatened the Mikado, which he appointed shogun by granting full powers. In practice, although the Mikado remained in office, he was reduced to a merely decorative role, while the shogun who would take a charge the government until the year 1867.
On the death of Yorimoto, the Shogunate fell into the hands of his political family, the Hojo, which is why this period is known as more or less indiscriminately or Minamoto Shogunate Hojo Shogunate. After a great revolt of three years (between 1333 and 1336), the Hojo were blown down and power went to the Ashikaga family. The shogun Ashikaga guaranteed accommodating some peace with the daimyo, the troubled Japanese feudal nobility had semiindependizarse central power was broken and a new row erupted in civil war. The Ashikaga managed to maintain something more than a century in power, but finally the last member of the family was overthrown in 1588. At the end of the sixteenth century, a series of military leaders (Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi and Tokugawa Ieyasu) launched a wave of savage wars in just under one quarter of a century united the entire Japanese archipelago under the aegis of the Tokugawa family. The Tokugawa Shogunate in Japan govern peace between 1604 and 1867, thanks to the relentless oppression to which Tokuwaga Ieyasu and his successors put a rebel daimyo. break, and a new row erupted in civil war. The Ashikaga

4 - Modern age

At the end of the period Ashikaga era, the Europeans first came to Japan, trying to introduce Christianity, and seeking to establish commercial factories. After a first rather lukewarm reaction, Ieyasu took the view that the new religion violated the practices of the Japanese and unleashed a harsh persecution, which was a symbolic milestone of thirteen martyrs crucified in Nagasaki, the year 1595. In later years, the Tokugawa merchants expelled all Westerners in Japan, except the Netherlands, who are allowed to stay on the island of Deshima, near Tokyo, in conditions of almost total isolation (this should be the words of a Captain Spanish, he told one of the daimyo that "the Spaniards managed to dominate the world by sending monks to lands to conquer, and where later the internal support of the faithful Catholics come to dominate the land with a few Spanish soldiers).
In general, the Tokugawa period was largely peaceful. However, Japanese culture was sterile deeply. Japan underwent a process of "return to roots", as expressed in the revival of ancestral worship, to form the semi-confusing religion under the name of Shintoism. However, this idyllic peace was broken by the year 1853, when U.S. Captain Matthew Perry entered Tokyo Bay with four gunboats, and threatening to bomb Japanese ports, forced the Tokugawa shogun to ignominious trade concessions. Faced with the dilemma of westernise'their or perish there were intense discussions, but finally the Mikado, for some seven centuries before the power of the Shogun, took the reins of the problem. In 1867, the Mikado Meiji Tenno took over the government, laying down the last Tokugawa shogun, and momentum for reforms of the Meiji era, in which Japan was transformed into a Westernized state in a few decades.
Over a long period, the re-contact with the West led to changes in Japanese society. The shogunate was forced to resign and power was returned to the emperor. The Meiji Restoration of 1868 initiated many reforms. The feudal system was abolished, and numerous Western institutions were adopted, including a legal system and Western government, along with other reforms in the economic, social and military that transformed Japan into a global medium to high level. As a result of the Sino-Japanese War and Russo-Japanese, Japan annexed Taiwan, Korea and other territories to its empire expanding.

Empire of Japan after

In 1947 a constitution was more liberal court, although retaining Mikado as a symbol of national unity in Japan. The peace was formally signed in 1951, and that year ended U.S. military occupation in Japan. The country then began a massive modernization effort in the economic area, which led them to become major producers of technology, and become one of the largest economic powers on the planet.
In 1905 Japan was victorious in the Russo-Japanese War, gaining thus a final and the only world power in Asia. Japan was highly influenced by the expansionist policies of his militia, which led to the invasion of Manchuria, triggering a second Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945). Japan attacked the U.S. Naval Base at Pearl Harbor in December 1941, which led the North American country to declare war on the Japanese Empire in the Second World War. After a long campaign in the Pacific, Okinawa and Japan lost was forced to retreat to the four main islands. U.S. army attacked the Tokyo, Osaka and other cities with conventional and strategic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki with two atomic bombs. Japan finally agreed to the unconditional capitulation to the U.S. Army August 15, 1945 thereby giving an end to war.
End of the conflict, the U.S. army occupied Japanese territory until 1952, after which Japan would start a very important economic recovery that returned prosperity andalusia archpiélago. Okinawa remained occupied until 1972, leaving now a major U.S. military base on the island.
In 1995 the Kobe earthquake kills 6433 people. The same year the Supreme Truth sect organized several attacks on the Tokyo subway, killing 27 people.

5 - Recent

Westernization of Japan increased the country's need for raw materials. Moreover, Japanese nationalism had grown around the figure of the Mikado. These circumstances pitted China against Japan in the Sino-Japanese War and against Russia in the Russo-Japanese War, at the end of which gained control of the Sakhalin island. During the First World War, Japan joined the side of the Triple Entente, militarily and occupied the islands of Oceania that belonged to Germany, is definitely after the peace treaties. These islands became the basis of what the Japanese wanted to become a great empire ocean. For this invaded Manchuria in 1933, creating the Manchukuo, to continue after its invasion of China in 1937. This militarist expansion runs with U.S. interests, so that relations between the two countries cooled. 1941 the Japanese attacked the U.S. port of Pearl Harbor, which led them to confront the Second World War that ended up losing the Japanese, after the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were leveled by two atomic bombs. Japan capitulated, and the Mikado was forced to renounce their claims to divinity.

Japan map