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JAPAN
History
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History
Japan
has been occupied for thousands of years. The current emperor's dynasty
is said to have been founded in 660 B.C.
Historically,
Japan resisted outside influences, and frequently closed itself to foreigners.
The United States forcibly opened Japan to foreign markets in 1853 when
Commodore Perry sailed his fleet into Tokyo Bay.
What Westerners
consider World War II was only part of an long-running Asiatic war in which
Japan invaded neighboring nations. Korea was annexed in 1910, Manchuria
was annexed in 1931, and China proper was invaded in 1937. Japan surrendered
to the Allies in 1945, and was occupied until 1952.
The United
States, wishing to demilitarize and democratize Japan, instituted many
reforms after World War II. These efforts included a decrease in the power
of the emperor and decentralization of the government. However, the Japanese
have recentralized their government in the past forty years.
The early
history of Japan is in distinguishable from mythology and consists of legends
collected in the two chronicles called Kojiki and Nihongi or Nihonshoki.
Both were composed in the 8th century: the first ends about 500, but the
second closes with the year A.D. 697.
The legends
contained in these works are difficult to summarize but they tell how the
land and people of Japan were produced by the cods among whom the sun goddess,
Amaterasu, and her brother, Susanoo, play a principal part. It is
noticeable that in the earliest stories there are two centers. Susanoo
descends to Silla in Korea and sails thence to Izumo in Japan where his
posterity rule, but the child sent by the sun goddess to rule Japan descends,
after negotiations with the rulers of Izumo, to the province of Hyuga in
Kyushu. This confirms the theory, which is probable for other reasons,
that the Japanese are a mixed race.
According
to the chronicles the first human sovereign of Japan was Jimmu Tenno who,
starting from Kyushu, proceeded to conquer the east. He halted on
the northern shores of the Inland sea and then, after much fighting established
his rule in the province of Yamato, which now becomes the center of Japan.
It is doubtless true that at some period before the Christian era there
was a movement of population from the west to Yamato, but the details
seem vague, Jimmu was not really the ancient name of the leader (Kami Yamato
Ihare-biko) but a posthumous title bestowed by scholars in the 8th century.
But in 1889 the leaders of Japan wished the nation to believe in the continuity
of Japanese history and the antiquity of the imperial lineage and with
this objective created the new constitution on the supposed date of Jimmu's
accession and made it a public holiday. In the same spirit they erected
in 1890 a mausoleum on the plains of Yamato near a tumulus where he is
said to have been buried. The chronicles give the names of Jimmu's
successors.
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Links
to More Information
History
Channel
Japan's History
.
Sources:
Library
of Congress |
