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The Byodoin in Uji (1053 AD) According to traditional Japanese mythology, Japan was founded in the 7th century BC by the ancestral Emperor Jimmu, who started a line of emperors that were the nominal rulers of Japan for most of its history (although actual power was usually held by powerful court nobles, regents, or shoguns).
Recorded Japanese history began in the 5th and 6th centuries AD, when the Chinese writing system, Buddhism, and other Chinese culture was introduced by Baekje. Through the Taika Reform Edicts of 645, Japanese intensified the adoption of Chinese cultural practices, and reorganized government in accordance with the Chinese adminstrative structure. This paved the way for the dominance of Chinese Confucian philosophy in Japan until the 19th century.
The Nara period of the 8th century marked the first strong Japanese state centered around an imperial court in the city of Heijokyo (now Nara). The imperial court later moved to Heiankyo (now Kyoto), starting a "golden age" of classical Japanese culture called the Heian period.
Samurai, as depicted in Akira Kurosawa's famous film The Seven Samurai Japan's medieval era was characterized by the emergence of a ruling class of warriors called samurai. In the year 1185, general Minamoto no Yoritomo was the first to break the tradition of ruling alongside the Emperor in Kyoto, holding power in Kamakura, just south of present-day Yokohama. While this Kamakura shogunate was somewhat stable, Japan soon fell into warring factions and suffered through what became known as the Warring States or Sengoku period.
During the 16th century, traders and missionaries from Europe reached Japan for the first time, initiating the " Nanban" ("Southern barbarian") period of active commercial and cultural exchange between Japan and the West. Around the same time, Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and Tokugawa Ieyasu, established increasingly strong control over the warring states of Japan. Tokugawa finally reunified the country by defeating his enemies at the Battle of Sekigahara in 1600, moving the capital to Edo (now Tokyo) and starting the Tokugawa shogunate.
The Tokugawa shogunate, suspicious of the influence of Catholic missionaries, barred all relations with Europeans except for severely restricted contacts with Dutch merchants at the artificial island of Dejima. This period of isolation lasted for two and a half centuries, a time of tenuous political unity known as the Edo period, considered to be the height of Japan's medieval culture.
The Empire of Japan encompassed most of East and Southeast Asia at its height in 1942. In 1854, U.S. Commodore Matthew Perry forced the opening of Japan to the West with the Convention of Kanagawa. The perceived weakness of the shogunate led many samurai to revolt, leading to the Boshin War of 1867- 68. The shogunate was forced to resign, and the Meiji Restoration returned the Emperor to power. Japan adopted numerous Western institutions in the Meiji period, including a modern government, legal system, and military. These reforms transformed the Empire of Japan into a world power which defeated China in the Sino-Japanese War and Russia in the Russo-Japanese War. By 1910, Japan controlled Taiwan, half of Sakhalin, and Korea.
The early 20th century saw a brief period of " Taisho democracy" overshadowed by the rise of Japanese expansionism, leading to the invasion of Manchuria and the second Sino-Japanese War ( 1937). In 1941, Japan attacked the United States naval base in Pearl Harbor, bringing the two countries into World War II. After a long campaign in the Pacific Ocean, Japan lost its initial territorial gains, and the United States moved into range to begin strategic bombing of Tokyo, Osaka, and other cities. Japan surrendered following the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, and lost all of its colonies in Asia and the Pacific.
Japan remained under US occupation until 1952. During that time, it adopted a new constitution that established the country as a pacifist constitutional monarchy. After the occupation, under a program of aggressive industrial development, protectionism, and deferral of strategic defense to the United States, Japan's gross national product rose to become the second-highest in the world. Despite a major stock market crash in 1989, from which the country has not fully recovered, Japan remains a global economic power and has recently begun to re-emerge as a strategic power, lending non-combat support to the Gulf War and the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
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