My Name History–The Entire History of Japan

The earliest humans arrived in Japan around 38,000–39,000 years ago. After the Jōmon hunter-gatherer culture, the Yayoi people migrated from the Asian continent around the 3rd century BC, bringing agriculture and iron tools. Their growing population gradually replaced or assimilated the Jōmon.

From the 4th to 9th centuries, local tribes unified under an imperial government, beginning a dynasty that still exists today. In 794, the capital moved to Heian-kyō, marking a golden age of classical Japanese culture where Shinto and Buddhism shaped religious life.

Political power later shifted from aristocrats like the Fujiwara to military clans. After winning the Genpei War (1180–1185), Minamoto no Yoritomo established the Kamakura shogunate. Despite repelling Mongol invasions, the shogunate fell in 1333, leading to the Muromachi period and rising power of regional daimyō. Japan eventually entered a long era of civil war.

The country was reunified in the late 16th century by Oda Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi. After 1598, Tokugawa Ieyasu established the Tokugawa shogunate and ushered in the peaceful Edo period (1600–1868), marked by strict social classes and isolation from most foreign contact.

Portugal first reached Japan in 1543, but true isolation ended with the U.S. Perry Expedition (1853–54). This helped trigger the Meiji Restoration (1868), which modernized Japan into an industrial world power. The Taishō era saw cultural growth but increasing military dominance, leading to invasions in Asia, war with China, and Japan’s entry into World War II after Pearl Harbor. Following the atomic bombings and Soviet invasion, Japan surrendered in 1945.

Under Allied occupation until 1952, Japan adopted a new constitution and became a democratic constitutional monarchy. From 1955 onward, Japan experienced rapid economic growth before entering the “Lost Decade” in the 1990s, after which growth slowed but remained globally significant.
#japan #history #documentary