Comet Hyakutake is a comet discovered on January 30, 1996, which passed very close to Earth in March of that year. It was dubbed The Great Comet of 1996; its passage near the Earth was one of the closest cometary approaches of the previous 200 years. Hyakutake appeared very bright in the night sky and was widely seen around the world. The comet temporarily upstaged the much anticipated Comet Hale–Bopp, which was approaching the inner Solar System at the time. Scientific observations of the comet led to several discoveries. Most surprising to cometary scientists was the first discovery of X-ray emission from a comet, believed to have been caused by ionised solar wind particles interacting with neutral atoms in the coma of the comet. The Ulysses spacecraft unexpectedly crossed the comet's tail at a distance of more than 500 million km from the nucleus, showing that Hyakutake had the longest tail known for a comet. Hyakutake is a long-period comet. Before its most recent passage through the Solar System, its orbital period was about 17,000 years, but the gravitational influence of the giant planets has increased this period to 100,000 years. The comet was discovered on January 30, 1996, by Yuji Hyakutake an amateur astronomer from southern Japan. He had been searching for comets for years and had moved to Kagoshima Prefecture partly for the dark skies in nearby rural areas. He was using a powerful set of binoculars with six-inch (152 mm) objective lenses to scan the skies on the night of the discovery. (Full article...)
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.
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 five cents, is part of the 1942 series.
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-00000011-QINU`"'
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.
Several inscriptions on the series of torii, the defining feature of Fushimi Inari-taisha, a Shintoshrine dedicated to the spirit Inari in Kyoto, Japan. The thousands of vermilion gates are all donations from individuals, families or companies.
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.
Gasshukoku suishi teitoku kōjōgaki (Oral statement by the American Navy admiral) is a Japanese print showing three men, believed to be Commander Anan, Commodore Matthew Perry and Captain Henry Adams, who opened up Japan to the west. The text being read may be President Fillmore's letter to Emperor of Japan.
There are 87 poems attributed to Narihira in court anthologies, though some attributions are dubious. Narihira's poems are exceptionally ambiguous; the compilers of the 10th-century Kokin Wakashū thus treated them to relatively long headnotes. (Full article...)
Kagawa Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located on Shikokuisland. The capital is Takamatsu. Kagawa was formerly known as Sanuki Province. For the brief period between August 1876 and December 1888, Kagawa was made a part of Ehime Prefecture. Located in Kagawa's capital city, Takamatsu, the mountain of Yashima was the battlefield for one of the best-known battles between the Heike and the Genji clans. The name Yashima means literally 'roof island'. Yashima, so called because of its shape like the roof of a traditional Japanese farm house, is a mesa headland jutting out into the Seto Inland Sea. But at the time when the Genpei War was fought, it was, as is implied by the name, an island separated from the mainland by the Aibikigawa River.The military forces of the Heikes, defeated at Ichinotani, retreated to Yashima with Emperor Antoku and set up his temporary court and their headquarters at Dannoura Inlet of Yashima. Yashima retains many names related to the historic battle. According to the stories, the main battlefield was the whole Dannoura area, where now stands Yashima-higashi Primary School. Visitors now find the old court site of Emperor Antoku, Tombs of Sato Tsugunobu and Kikuomaru, Rock on which Nasuno Yoichi prayed for success of his feat, Rock on which the bestriding Yoichi shot his arrow at the fan.
The following are images from various Japan-related articles on Wikipedia.
Image 1Japan (Iapam) and Korea, in the 1568 Portuguese map of the cartographer João Vaz Dourado (from History of Japan)
Image 2A 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 12Japanese 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 38Relief 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 39Japan in 1582, showing territory conquered by Oda Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi in gray (from History of Japan)
Image 41The 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 46Samurai could kill a commoner for the slightest insult and were widely feared by the Japanese population. Edo period, 1798. (from History of Japan)
Image 50Mount 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 51Territorial extent of Yamato court during the Kofun period (from History of Japan)
Image 52Samurai of the Satsuma Domain during the Boshin War (from History of Japan)
Image 72Minamoto 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)
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