Japan's History

    

   Japan is known as the Land of the Rising Sun as you can see on its flag. People who live in japan are actually the people who are used to live on the continent of Asia  "Human history didn't begin on the island of Japan"(http://www.japan-101.com) Most likely people arrived in Japan through Korea, Siberia and/or Taiwan/China. During the 5th and 6th centuries, the Chinese writing system and Buddhism were introduced with other Chinese culture by way of the Korean peninsula.


   Traditional Japanese legend said that Japan was founded in the 7th century BC by the ancestral Emperor Jimmu. From the 12th century until the 19th century Shoguns held political control. During the 16th century traders from Portugal, the Netherlands, England and Spain arrived, as did Christian missionaries, During the early 17th century, Japan's Shogunate suspected that they were  a military conquest by European powers and barred all relations with the outside world except for severel contacts with Dutch and Chinese merchants at Nagasaki. "This isolation lasted for 251 years, until commodore Mattew Perry forced the opening of Japan to the West with the convention of Kanagawa in 1854"(http://www.japan-101.com).


   Japan established itself as a regional power through military victories against China (1895) and Russia (1905). Involvement in 'World War I' brought Japan enhanced global influence, and the Treaty of Versailles expanded its land holdings. The postwar years brought prosperity to the rapidly changing nation. It soon began to exercise considerable influence in Asia and and subsequently invaded Manchuria and much of China. On 7 December 1941, Japan launched a successful air attack on U.S naval forces at Pearl Harbor.But in 1943 the tide of the war turned against Japan. The U.S dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the summer of 1945. Complete collapse of the empire and surrender ensued.They killed approximately 130,000 people instantly ."A divested post-war Japan remained under US occupation until 1952" (http://www.culturegrams.com/). Okinawa remained under US occupation until 1972 to stabilize East Asia, and a major military presence remains there to this day.


Bibliography:
http://0-ic.galegroup.com.library.hct.ac.ae/ic/suic/ReferenceDetailsPage/ReferenceDetailsWindow?displayGroupName=K12-Reference&action=e&windowstate=normal&catId=GALE|00000000ML2O&documentId=GALE|EJ2305100285&mode=view  

http://0-online.culturegrams.com.library.hct.ac.ae/world/world_country_sections.php?contid=3&wmn=Asia&cid=82&cn=Japan&sname=History&snid=2 


 http://www.japan-101.com/history/history_complete_overview.htm

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