Kimigayo, often translated as "May your reign last forever" is
Japan's
National Anthem, and is also one of the world's shortest
national anthems in current use. The
lyrics are based on a
Waka poem written in the
Heian Period, sung to a melody written in the later
Meiji Era. The current melody was chosen in 1880, replacing an unpopular melody composed eleven years earlier. Although Kimigayo has long been Japan's de facto national anthem, it was only legally recognized as such in 1999 with the passing of the
Law Regarding the National Flag and National Anthem. After its adoption, there was controversy over the performance of the anthem at public school ceremonies. Along with the
national flag, Kimigayo was considered to be a symbol of
imperialism and
militarism in wartime. The lyrics first appeared in a poem anthology, Kokin Wakashū, as an anonymous poem. While anonymous poems were not uncommon at that time, and the author may have been in fact known, the anonymity might be because the author belonged to one of the lower classes. The poem was also included in a lot of anthologies, and in a later period used as a celebration song by people of all walks of life. Unlike the current anthem, the poem began with "Wa ga Kimi wa" ('you, my lord') instead of "Kimigayo wa" ('your reign'). The change of the lyrics occurred during the
Kamakura period. (Full article...)
The siege of Osaka was a series of battles undertaken by the Japanese
Tokugawa shogunate against the
Toyotomi clan, and ending in the clan's dissolution. Divided into two stages (the winter campaign and the summer campaign), and lasting from 1614 to 1615, the siege put an end to the last major armed opposition to the shogunate's establishment. This eight-metre-long (26 ft) painting, titled The Summer Battle of Osaka Castle and executed on a
Japanese folding screen, illustrates
Osaka Castle under siege, and was commissioned by the daimyoKuroda Nagamasa, who took a team of painters with him to the battlefield to record the event. The painting depicts 5071 people and 21 generals, and is held in the collection of Osaka Castle.
The Japanese government-issued dollar was a form of currency issued between 1942 and 1945 for use within the territories of Singapore, Malaya, North Borneo, Sarawak and Brunei, under occupation by
Imperial Japan during World War II. The currency, informally referred to as "banana money", was released solely in the form of banknotes, as metals were considered essential to the war effort. The languages used on the notes were reduced to English and Japanese. Each note bears a different obverse and reverse design, but all have a similar layout, and were marked with stamped block letters that begin with "M" for "Malaya". This 1945 one-hundred-dollar Japanese-issued banknote, depicting labourers in a rubber
plantation on the obverse, and stilted
Malay houses on the reverse, is part of the
National Numismatic Collection at the
Smithsonian Institution.
Other denominations: '"`UNIQ--templatestyles-00000011-QINU`"'
One part of five in the set Extermination of Evil, this
hanging scrolls was originally part of a handscroll known as the "second edition of the Masuda family Hell Scroll" before being cut into sections. The God of Heavenly Punishment is shown consuming the ox-headed deity Gozu Tennō, the god of pestilence.
A registration card for
Louis Wijnhamer (1904–1975), an ethnic Dutch humanitarian who was captured soon after the Empire of Japan occupied the Dutch East Indies in March 1942. Prior to the occupation, many ethnic Europeans had refused to leave, expecting the Japanese occupation government to keep a Dutch administration in place. When Japanese troops took control of government infrastructure and services such as ports and postal services, 100,000 European (and some Chinese) civilians were interned in prisoner-of-war camps where the death rates were between 13 and 30 per cent. Wijnhamer was interned in a series of camps throughout Southeast Asia and, after the
surrender of Japan, returned to what was now Indonesia, where he lived until his death.
Flowering Plum Tree (after Hiroshige), a
copy of the
ukiyo-e woodblock print Plum Park in Kameido by the Japanese artist
Hiroshige. Completed in 1887, this painting is one of several
Japanese-influenced works created by
Vincent van Gogh after the
opening up of Japan. In his copy, van Gogh ignored the shading present in the trunk and background of Hiroshige's image, which there implied age, and instead used colours with more "passion" and "youthfulness".
Gasshukoku suishi teitoku kōjōgaki (Oral statement by the American Navy admiral) is a Japanese print showing three men, believed to be Commander Anan,
Commodore Matthew Perry and Captain Henry Adams, who opened up
Japan to the west. The text being read may be
President Fillmore's letter to
Emperor of Japan.
Banknotes:
Empire of Japan. Reproduction: National Numismatic Collection, National Museum of American History at the Smithsonian Institution
The Japanese-issued Netherlands Indies gulden was the currency issued by the
Japanese Empire when it occupied the
Dutch East Indies during World War II. Following the Dutch capitulation in March 1942, the Japanese closed all banks, seized assets and currency, and assumed control of the economy in the territory. They began issuing
military banknotes, as had previously been done in other occupied territories. These were printed in Japan, but retained the name of the pre-war currency and replaced the Dutch gulden at par. From 1943 the military banknotes were replaced by identical bank-issued notes printed within the territory, and the currency was renamed the roepiah from 1944. The currency was replaced by the
Indonesian rupiah in 1946, one year after the Japanese surrender and the country's independence.
This note, denominated five gulden, is part of the 1942 series.
Before the outbreak of World War I, German naval ships were located in the Pacific; Tsingtao developed into a major seaport while the surrounding
Kiautschou Bay area was
leased to Germany since 1898. During the war, Japanese and British
Allied troops
besieged the port in 1914 before capturing it from the German and Austro-Hungarian
Central Powers, occupying the city and the surrounding region. It served as a base for the exploitation of the natural resources of
Shandong province and northern China, and a "New City District" was established to furnish the Japanese colonists with commercial sections and living quarters. Tsingtao eventually reverted to Chinese rule by 1922.
Asahi Breweries is a Japanese global beer, spirits, soft drinks and food business group. This photograph, taken during the
blue hour with a full moon, shows the headquarters of Asahi Breweries in
Sumida, Tokyo, as viewed from the wharf on the
Sumida River near Azuma Bridge. The
Asahi Beer Hall, topped by the Asahi Flame, designed by
Philippe Starck, is visible on the right, with the
Tokyo Skytree in the background on the left.
2007 - An
earthquake of magnitude 6.8 and aftershock of 6.6 occur off the
Niigata coast, killing 8 people with at least 800 injured and damaging a nuclear power plant.
Seventy-six more deaths and at least 500 hospitalizations in
Japan are linked to use of
red yeast rice supplements distributed by Kobayashi Pharmaceutical, causing
kidney disease and other severe conditions.
(Asahi TV)
Yoko Ono (
Japanese: 小野 洋子,
romanized: Ono Yōko, usually spelled in
katakanaオノ・ヨーコ; born February 18, 1933) is a Japanese multimedia artist, singer, songwriter, and peace activist. Her work also encompasses
performance art and filmmaking.
Ono grew up in Tokyo and moved to New York City in 1952 to join her family. She became involved with New York City's downtown artists scene in the early 1960s, which included the
Fluxus group, and became well known in 1969 when she married English musician
John Lennon of
the Beatles, with whom she would subsequently record as a duo in the
Plastic Ono Band. The couple used
their honeymoon as a stage for public
protests against the Vietnam War. She and Lennon remained married until
he was murdered in front of the couple's apartment building,
the Dakota, on December 8, 1980. Together they had one son,
Sean, who later also became a musician. (Full article...)
Chiba Prefecture is a
prefecture of
Japan located in the
Greater Tokyo Area. Its capital is
Chiba City. Chiba Prefecture was established on June 15, 1873 with the merger of
KisarazuPrefecture and
Inba Prefecture. Historically, the prefecture constituted three
provinces of
Awa,
Kazusa, and
Shimousa. Chiba borders
Ibaraki Prefecture to the north at the Tone River,
Tokyo and
Saitama Prefecture to the west at the Edo River, the
Pacific Ocean to the east and
Tokyo Bay around its southern boundary. Most of Chiba lies on the hilly
Boso Peninsula, a
rice farming region: the east coast, known as the Ninety-Nine League Plain, is an especially productive area. The most populous zone, in the northwest of the prefecture, is part of the
Kantō region that extends into the urban agglomeration of Tokyo and Saitama. The
Kuroshio Current flows near Chiba, which keep it relatively warm in winter and cooler in summer than neighbouring Tokyo. Chiba is one of Japan's largest industrial areas, thanks to its long coastline on Tokyo Bay. After Chiba was chosen as the site for a major Kawasaki Steel factory in 1950, the prefectural government embarked on a large-scale land reclamation program that dredged up large plots of waterfront property for factories, warehouses, and docks. Chemical production, petrochemical refining, and machine production are the three main industries in Chiba today: together, they account for forty-five percent of the prefecture's exports. In recent years, the government has funded more than eighty industrial parks to bring development further inland as well.
Image 26A social hierarchy chart based on old academic theories. Such hierarchical diagrams were removed from Japanese textbooks after various studies in the 1990s revealed that peasants, craftsmen, and merchants were in fact equal and merely social categories. Successive shoguns held the highest or near-highest
court ranks, higher than most court nobles. (from History of Japan)
Image 29The Kuril Islands, with their Russian names. The borders of the Treaty of Shimoda (1855) and the Treaty of St. Petersburg (1875) are shown in red. Currently, all islands northeast of Hokkaido are administered by Russia. (from Geography of Japan)
Image 32Atomic cloud over Hiroshima, 1945 (from History of Japan)
Image 33Samurai could
kill a commoner for the slightest insult and were widely feared by the Japanese population. Edo period, 1798 (from History of Japan)
Image 39Tokugawa Ieyasu was the founder and first shōgun of the Tokugawa shogunate. (from History of Japan)
Image 40Relief map of the land and the seabed of Japan. It shows the surface and underwater terrain of the Japanese archipelago. (from Geography of Japan)
Image 70Mount Aso 4 pyroclastic flow and the spread of Aso 4 tephra (90,000 to 85,000 years ago). The pyroclastic flow reached almost the whole area of Kyushu, and volcanic ash was deposited of 15 cm in a wide area from Kyushu to southern Hokkaido. (from Geography of Japan)
Image 72Japanese experts inspect the scene of the alleged railway sabotage on South Manchurian Railway that led to the
Mukden Incident and the Japanese occupation of Manchuria. (from History of Japan)
Image 81Minamoto no Yoritomo was the founder of the Kamakura shogunate in 1192. This was the first
military government in which the shogun with the
samurai were the de facto rulers of Japan. (from History of Japan)
This is a list of recognized content, updated weekly by
JL-Bot (
talk·contribs) (typically on Saturdays). There is no need to edit the list yourself. If an article is missing from the list, make sure it is
tagged (e.g. {{WikiProject Japan}}) or
categorized correctly and wait for the next update. See
WP:RECOG for configuration options.
Kimigayo, often translated as "May your reign last forever" is
Japan's
National Anthem, and is also one of the world's shortest
national anthems in current use. The
lyrics are based on a
Waka poem written in the
Heian Period, sung to a melody written in the later
Meiji Era. The current melody was chosen in 1880, replacing an unpopular melody composed eleven years earlier. Although Kimigayo has long been Japan's de facto national anthem, it was only legally recognized as such in 1999 with the passing of the
Law Regarding the National Flag and National Anthem. After its adoption, there was controversy over the performance of the anthem at public school ceremonies. Along with the
national flag, Kimigayo was considered to be a symbol of
imperialism and
militarism in wartime. The lyrics first appeared in a poem anthology, Kokin Wakashū, as an anonymous poem. While anonymous poems were not uncommon at that time, and the author may have been in fact known, the anonymity might be because the author belonged to one of the lower classes. The poem was also included in a lot of anthologies, and in a later period used as a celebration song by people of all walks of life. Unlike the current anthem, the poem began with "Wa ga Kimi wa" ('you, my lord') instead of "Kimigayo wa" ('your reign'). The change of the lyrics occurred during the
Kamakura period. (Full article...)
The siege of Osaka was a series of battles undertaken by the Japanese
Tokugawa shogunate against the
Toyotomi clan, and ending in the clan's dissolution. Divided into two stages (the winter campaign and the summer campaign), and lasting from 1614 to 1615, the siege put an end to the last major armed opposition to the shogunate's establishment. This eight-metre-long (26 ft) painting, titled The Summer Battle of Osaka Castle and executed on a
Japanese folding screen, illustrates
Osaka Castle under siege, and was commissioned by the daimyoKuroda Nagamasa, who took a team of painters with him to the battlefield to record the event. The painting depicts 5071 people and 21 generals, and is held in the collection of Osaka Castle.
The Japanese government-issued dollar was a form of currency issued between 1942 and 1945 for use within the territories of Singapore, Malaya, North Borneo, Sarawak and Brunei, under occupation by
Imperial Japan during World War II. The currency, informally referred to as "banana money", was released solely in the form of banknotes, as metals were considered essential to the war effort. The languages used on the notes were reduced to English and Japanese. Each note bears a different obverse and reverse design, but all have a similar layout, and were marked with stamped block letters that begin with "M" for "Malaya". This 1945 one-hundred-dollar Japanese-issued banknote, depicting labourers in a rubber
plantation on the obverse, and stilted
Malay houses on the reverse, is part of the
National Numismatic Collection at the
Smithsonian Institution.
Other denominations: '"`UNIQ--templatestyles-00000011-QINU`"'
One part of five in the set Extermination of Evil, this
hanging scrolls was originally part of a handscroll known as the "second edition of the Masuda family Hell Scroll" before being cut into sections. The God of Heavenly Punishment is shown consuming the ox-headed deity Gozu Tennō, the god of pestilence.
A registration card for
Louis Wijnhamer (1904–1975), an ethnic Dutch humanitarian who was captured soon after the Empire of Japan occupied the Dutch East Indies in March 1942. Prior to the occupation, many ethnic Europeans had refused to leave, expecting the Japanese occupation government to keep a Dutch administration in place. When Japanese troops took control of government infrastructure and services such as ports and postal services, 100,000 European (and some Chinese) civilians were interned in prisoner-of-war camps where the death rates were between 13 and 30 per cent. Wijnhamer was interned in a series of camps throughout Southeast Asia and, after the
surrender of Japan, returned to what was now Indonesia, where he lived until his death.
Flowering Plum Tree (after Hiroshige), a
copy of the
ukiyo-e woodblock print Plum Park in Kameido by the Japanese artist
Hiroshige. Completed in 1887, this painting is one of several
Japanese-influenced works created by
Vincent van Gogh after the
opening up of Japan. In his copy, van Gogh ignored the shading present in the trunk and background of Hiroshige's image, which there implied age, and instead used colours with more "passion" and "youthfulness".
Gasshukoku suishi teitoku kōjōgaki (Oral statement by the American Navy admiral) is a Japanese print showing three men, believed to be Commander Anan,
Commodore Matthew Perry and Captain Henry Adams, who opened up
Japan to the west. The text being read may be
President Fillmore's letter to
Emperor of Japan.
Banknotes:
Empire of Japan. Reproduction: National Numismatic Collection, National Museum of American History at the Smithsonian Institution
The Japanese-issued Netherlands Indies gulden was the currency issued by the
Japanese Empire when it occupied the
Dutch East Indies during World War II. Following the Dutch capitulation in March 1942, the Japanese closed all banks, seized assets and currency, and assumed control of the economy in the territory. They began issuing
military banknotes, as had previously been done in other occupied territories. These were printed in Japan, but retained the name of the pre-war currency and replaced the Dutch gulden at par. From 1943 the military banknotes were replaced by identical bank-issued notes printed within the territory, and the currency was renamed the roepiah from 1944. The currency was replaced by the
Indonesian rupiah in 1946, one year after the Japanese surrender and the country's independence.
This note, denominated five gulden, is part of the 1942 series.
Before the outbreak of World War I, German naval ships were located in the Pacific; Tsingtao developed into a major seaport while the surrounding
Kiautschou Bay area was
leased to Germany since 1898. During the war, Japanese and British
Allied troops
besieged the port in 1914 before capturing it from the German and Austro-Hungarian
Central Powers, occupying the city and the surrounding region. It served as a base for the exploitation of the natural resources of
Shandong province and northern China, and a "New City District" was established to furnish the Japanese colonists with commercial sections and living quarters. Tsingtao eventually reverted to Chinese rule by 1922.
Asahi Breweries is a Japanese global beer, spirits, soft drinks and food business group. This photograph, taken during the
blue hour with a full moon, shows the headquarters of Asahi Breweries in
Sumida, Tokyo, as viewed from the wharf on the
Sumida River near Azuma Bridge. The
Asahi Beer Hall, topped by the Asahi Flame, designed by
Philippe Starck, is visible on the right, with the
Tokyo Skytree in the background on the left.
2007 - An
earthquake of magnitude 6.8 and aftershock of 6.6 occur off the
Niigata coast, killing 8 people with at least 800 injured and damaging a nuclear power plant.
Seventy-six more deaths and at least 500 hospitalizations in
Japan are linked to use of
red yeast rice supplements distributed by Kobayashi Pharmaceutical, causing
kidney disease and other severe conditions.
(Asahi TV)
Yoko Ono (
Japanese: 小野 洋子,
romanized: Ono Yōko, usually spelled in
katakanaオノ・ヨーコ; born February 18, 1933) is a Japanese multimedia artist, singer, songwriter, and peace activist. Her work also encompasses
performance art and filmmaking.
Ono grew up in Tokyo and moved to New York City in 1952 to join her family. She became involved with New York City's downtown artists scene in the early 1960s, which included the
Fluxus group, and became well known in 1969 when she married English musician
John Lennon of
the Beatles, with whom she would subsequently record as a duo in the
Plastic Ono Band. The couple used
their honeymoon as a stage for public
protests against the Vietnam War. She and Lennon remained married until
he was murdered in front of the couple's apartment building,
the Dakota, on December 8, 1980. Together they had one son,
Sean, who later also became a musician. (Full article...)
Chiba Prefecture is a
prefecture of
Japan located in the
Greater Tokyo Area. Its capital is
Chiba City. Chiba Prefecture was established on June 15, 1873 with the merger of
KisarazuPrefecture and
Inba Prefecture. Historically, the prefecture constituted three
provinces of
Awa,
Kazusa, and
Shimousa. Chiba borders
Ibaraki Prefecture to the north at the Tone River,
Tokyo and
Saitama Prefecture to the west at the Edo River, the
Pacific Ocean to the east and
Tokyo Bay around its southern boundary. Most of Chiba lies on the hilly
Boso Peninsula, a
rice farming region: the east coast, known as the Ninety-Nine League Plain, is an especially productive area. The most populous zone, in the northwest of the prefecture, is part of the
Kantō region that extends into the urban agglomeration of Tokyo and Saitama. The
Kuroshio Current flows near Chiba, which keep it relatively warm in winter and cooler in summer than neighbouring Tokyo. Chiba is one of Japan's largest industrial areas, thanks to its long coastline on Tokyo Bay. After Chiba was chosen as the site for a major Kawasaki Steel factory in 1950, the prefectural government embarked on a large-scale land reclamation program that dredged up large plots of waterfront property for factories, warehouses, and docks. Chemical production, petrochemical refining, and machine production are the three main industries in Chiba today: together, they account for forty-five percent of the prefecture's exports. In recent years, the government has funded more than eighty industrial parks to bring development further inland as well.
Image 26A social hierarchy chart based on old academic theories. Such hierarchical diagrams were removed from Japanese textbooks after various studies in the 1990s revealed that peasants, craftsmen, and merchants were in fact equal and merely social categories. Successive shoguns held the highest or near-highest
court ranks, higher than most court nobles. (from History of Japan)
Image 29The Kuril Islands, with their Russian names. The borders of the Treaty of Shimoda (1855) and the Treaty of St. Petersburg (1875) are shown in red. Currently, all islands northeast of Hokkaido are administered by Russia. (from Geography of Japan)
Image 32Atomic cloud over Hiroshima, 1945 (from History of Japan)
Image 33Samurai could
kill a commoner for the slightest insult and were widely feared by the Japanese population. Edo period, 1798 (from History of Japan)
Image 39Tokugawa Ieyasu was the founder and first shōgun of the Tokugawa shogunate. (from History of Japan)
Image 40Relief map of the land and the seabed of Japan. It shows the surface and underwater terrain of the Japanese archipelago. (from Geography of Japan)
Image 70Mount Aso 4 pyroclastic flow and the spread of Aso 4 tephra (90,000 to 85,000 years ago). The pyroclastic flow reached almost the whole area of Kyushu, and volcanic ash was deposited of 15 cm in a wide area from Kyushu to southern Hokkaido. (from Geography of Japan)
Image 72Japanese experts inspect the scene of the alleged railway sabotage on South Manchurian Railway that led to the
Mukden Incident and the Japanese occupation of Manchuria. (from History of Japan)
Image 81Minamoto no Yoritomo was the founder of the Kamakura shogunate in 1192. This was the first
military government in which the shogun with the
samurai were the de facto rulers of Japan. (from History of Japan)
This is a list of recognized content, updated weekly by
JL-Bot (
talk·contribs) (typically on Saturdays). There is no need to edit the list yourself. If an article is missing from the list, make sure it is
tagged (e.g. {{WikiProject Japan}}) or
categorized correctly and wait for the next update. See
WP:RECOG for configuration options.
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