August 6th

On this day in 1945, at about 8:15 a.m., “Little Boy”, the first atomic bomb detonated in aggression, was dropped on Hiroshima.

The 393d Bombardment Squadron’s Enola Gay and two other planes escorting it flew over the city unmolested as the Japanese military had decided to intercept only large squadrons in an attempt to conserve precious fuel and airplanes. (Read on …)

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Justice Minister Kunio Hatoyama signed the execution orders for three more death row inmates. The three were hanged yesterday and boosted Hatoyama’s list of hangings to 13.

One of the two men hanged at the Tokyo Detention Center was none other than Tsutomu Miyazaki, the infamous serial killer of little girls in Saitama back in the late 1980’s. He was executed 20 years after his first murder.

Miyazaki was one of those killers that was so feared that he was referred to by his first name, Tsutomu. He’s like the “Boogie Man” in the kanto region of Japan, the Keyser Söze invoked to scare little kids into good behavior.

Miyazaki was finally apprehended in July 1989 after trying to insert a zoom lens into (Read on …)

June 15, 1896

The Sanriku coastal area of Japan (Iwate prefecture) was nearly wiped off the map on this day after a magnitude 8.5 earthquake launched a tsunami that killed more than 25,000 people. 170 miles of coastline were demolished. Hawaii was also damaged by waves headed the other way. (Read on …)

The video below has been making the email rounds recently, and it certainly doesn’t look like a fun commute. At any rate, I think the train line itself is pretty easy to identify. I think I know which station it is based on some cues in the video, but I’m not saying what I think just yet.

I’ll write down what I think with some way to timestamp it. Tokyo densha otakus, what station do you think is in that video and why?

March 1st

“Today marks the declaration of Korean independence. There will be peaceful demonstrations all over Korea. If our meetings are orderly and peaceful, we shall receive the help of President Wilson and the great powers at Versailles, and Korea will be a free nation.”

On this day in 1919, at 2:00 p.m., Korean Nationalists involved with what would come to be known as the Samil Movement read the Korean Declaration of Independence to crowds throughout the country.

The Declaration was written by the historian Choe Nam-seon and the poet Manhae and propagated by a core group of 33, mostly Christian and student, activists. Although the core group of activists, concerned about lage demonsrations, met initially in the Taehwagwan restaurant in Seoul, public demonstrations around Korea attracted up to a total of two million people.
(Read on …)

February 19th

On this day in 1942, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, permitting the relocation of Americans of Japanese descent and Japanese immigrants to internment camps throughout the West. The Executive Order was issued based upon the recommendations Western Defense Command sent to General Headquarters in Washington on December 19, 1941:
(Read on …)

January 7th is a big day for anniversaries in Japanese history.

Two Prime Ministers assumed their posts on this day - Prince Kimmochi Saionji in 1906 and Count Keigo Kiyoura in 1924.

Prince Kimmochi Saionji was in the midst of an interesting succession of Prime Ministers - he was Prime Minister twice, the 12th and 14th, and was both preceded and succeeded both times by Japan’s longest-serving Prime Minister, Taro Katsura, the 11th, 13th, and 15th Prime Minister.

Saionji, not yet a prince, but still a marquis in 1906, took over the Prime Ministership from Katsura for the first time on January 7, 1906 when Katsura resigned due to controversy surrounding the 1905 Treaty of Portsmouth that ended the Russo-Japanese War.

The controversy was primarily the disappointment of the Japanese public at the relatively modest rewards secured by Japan despite a decisive, resounding victory over Russia - the young modern Japanese state’s most significant military victory to that date and a major step towards getting the respect from the West that Japan sought. During the war, American visitors to Japan commented on the remarkable public enthusiasm for the war - women wore hair ornaments shaped like little battleships and kimono printed with patriotic and martial patterns, significant triumphs were met with exuberant public celebrations, and more.

The Russo-Japanese War was to that date the largest-ever clash between states (in terms of troop and ship numbers) and saw the first use of the telegraph, telephone, machine guns, barbed wire, illuminating star shells, mine fields, advanced torpedoes, and armored battleships in war. (Read on …)

December 18th

On this day in 1947, the massive Zaibatsu, who ran the prewar and wartime economy of Japan (as well as, possibly, large parts of the government) were broken up by GHQ.
But also. . .

On this day in 1956, Japan’s membership in the United Nations was officially accepted. While Japan was already facing pressure from the US to renege on its Article 9 pledge to renounce war and its accoutrements, and there was no shortage of hostility against the country left over from World War II, Japan’s accession to the UN was apparently not hotly contested.

In order to join the UN, a country must be recommended by the Security Council, approved by the General Assembly, and agree to abide by the requirements of the United Nations Charter. Potential political obstacles to Japanese membership in the UN - mainly the objections of China or other victims of Japan’s wartime aggression - were rendered null by the San Francisco Treaty of 1952, which officially ended World War II. In it, its author, John Foster Dulles, included a clause requiring all signatories of the Treaty to not only not oppose Japan’s membership in the UN, but support and promote it. Chinese opposition was rendered moot by the facts that UN membership is decided by the General Assembly, not the UNSC, and that China’s seat, at the time, was held by the Republic of China, or Taiwan, not by the People’s Republic of China.

Japan’s membership in the UN was not only a part of the country’s postwar recovery and rise in international stature, but also in line with a turn towards greater independence in foreign policy (Read on …)

On December 13, 1937, the ancient walled city of Nanjing fell to the Japanese Imperial Army, an event followed by what only be described as a massacre.

Last year on this day, TPR brought you what we think is a fair and balanced assessment of what happened and how it is being dealt with today.

As always, discussion and dissention are welcomed, preemptive insult-tossing is not.

December 7, 2007

On this day in 1941, the Japanese Navy attacked Pearl Harbor.

Last year, TPR brought you this brief summary of the attack on Pearl Harbor and the US’s entry into World War II.

This year, we bring you the speech itself.
Listen to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt explain America’s declaration of war.

What is striking is how much happened on December 7th and 8th, 1941, and how little of it is remembered now - how many major events have been pushed aside as Pearl Harbor went from surprise to symbol to legend (to schmaltzy film.)

On December 8, 1941 (Japan time), Japan not only attacked Pearl Harbor. . .

(Read on …)

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