The Akutan Zero is inspected by US military personnel on Akutan Island on July 11, 1942.
The Akutan Zero was a type 0 model 21 MitsubishiA6M Zero Japanese fighter plane which crash-landed on Akutan Island during World War II. It was captured intact by the Americans in July 1942 and became the first flyable Zero acquired by the United States during the war. Following its capture, it was repaired and flown by American test pilots. As a result of information gained during these tests, American strategists were able to devise tactics to defeat the Zero, which was the Imperial Japanese Navy's primary fighter plane throughout the war. The Akutan Zero was "a prize almost beyond value to the United States", and "probably one of the greatest prizes of the Pacific war". Japanese historian Masatake Okumiya noted that the acquisition of the Akutan Zero "was no less serious" than the Japanese defeat at the Battle of Midway, and that it "did much to hasten [Japan's] final defeat". The Akutan Zero was destroyed in a training accident in 1945. Pieces of it are preserved in several museums in the United States. (Full article...)
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".
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.
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-thousand-dollar Japanese-issued banknote, depicting a bullock cart on the obverse and a man with water buffaloes in a stream on the reverse, is part of the National Numismatic Collection at the Smithsonian Institution.
Other denominations: '"`UNIQ--templatestyles-0000000D-QINU`"'
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.
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.
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.
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 one gulden, is part of the 1942 series.
This ukiyo-e print, titled Kinhyōshi yōrin, hero of the Suikoden, is one in a series created by the Japanese artistUtagawa Kuniyoshi between 1827 and 1830 illustrating the 108 Suikoden ("Water Margin"). The publication of the series catapulted Kuniyoshi to fame and helped created a Suikoden craze in Japan. The hero portrayed in this print is Yang Lin.
Two geisha conversing near Kinkaku-ji in Kyoto, Japan. One of their most recognizable characteristics, traditional white make-up, is shown in detail. Its application is hard to perfect and is a time-consuming process. It is applied before dressing to avoid dirtying the kimono. The white make-up covers the face, neck, and chest, with two or three unwhitened areas. One of these areas is a "W" or "V" shape (usually the traditional "W" shape) on the nape to accentuate this traditionally erotic area.
Satoru Iwata (Japanese: 岩田 聡, Hepburn: Iwata Satoru, December6, 1959 – July11, 2015) was a Japanese businessman, video game programmer, video game designer, and producer. He was the fourth president and chief executive officer (CEO) of Nintendo from 2002 until his death in 2015. Iwata was a major contributor in broadening the appeal of video games by focusing on novel and entertaining games rather than top-of-the-line hardware.
Born in Sapporo, Iwata expressed interest in video games from an early age and created his first simple game while in high school. He majored in computer science at the Tokyo Institute of Technology. In 1980, he joined the game developer HAL Laboratory while attending the university. At HAL, he worked as a programmer and closely collaborated with Nintendo, producing his first commercial game in 1983. Games to which he contributed include EarthBound and many games in the Kirby series. Following a downturn and near-bankruptcy, Iwata became the president of HAL in 1993 at the insistence of Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi and brought financial stability. In the following years, he worked in the development of the Pokémon and Super Smash Bros. series. Iwata joined Nintendo as the head of its corporate planning division in 2000. (Full article...)
Akita Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Tōhoku Region of northern Japan. The capital is the city of Akita. Separated from the principal Japanese centres of commerce, politics, and population by several hundred kilometres and the Ou and Dewa mountain ranges to the east, Akita remained largely isolated from Japanese society until after the year 600CE. Populated principally by the Ainu people, Akita was a region of hunter-gatherers and principally nomadic tribes. The first historical record of Akita-ken dates to 658CE, when the General Abe no Hirafu conquered the native Ezo tribes at Akita city and Nushiro. Hirafu, then governor of the Koshi region, established a fort on the Mogami river, and thus began the Japanese settlement of the region. In 733, a new military settlement—later renamed Akita Castle—was built in modern-day Akita city at Takashimizu, and more permanent roads and structures were developed. The region was used as a base of operations for the Japanese empire as it drove the native Ezo people from northern Honshū. It shifted hands several times in the interim. During the Tokugawa shogunate it was appropriated to the Satake family in 1602, who ruled the region for 260 years, developing the agriculture and mining industries that are still predominant today. Throughout this period, it was classified as part of Dewa Province and remained politically quite stable. In 1871, during the Meiji Restoration, Dewa province was reshaped and the old daimyō regions (called "han") were abolished and administratively reconstructed, resulting in the modern-day borders of Akita.
Image 26Japan (Iapam) and Korea, in the 1568 Portuguese map of the cartographer João Vaz Dourado (from History of Japan)
Image 27Japanese 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 28
Edo period screen depicting the Battle of Sekigahara. It began on 21 October 1600, with a total of 160,000 men facing each other.
Image 32Japanese archipelago with outlined islands (from Geography 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 34Mount 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 40A 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 41Atomic cloud over Hiroshima, 1945 (from History of Japan)
Image 44A handscroll painting dated c. 1130, illustrating a scene from the "Bamboo River" chapter of The Tale of Genji (from History of Japan)
Image 45Minamoto 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)
Image 46Kinkaku-ji was built in 1397 by Ashikaga Yoshimitsu. (from History of Japan)
Image 47Relief 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 82The 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 83The word Nihon written in kanji (horizontal placement of characters). The text means "Japan" in Japanese. (from History of Japan)
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