Sumitomo GroupThe Sumitomo Group is one of the largest Japanese keiretsu, or business groups, founded by Masatomo Sumitomo (1585–1652) around 1615 during the early Edo period. The Sumitomo Group traces its roots to a bookshop in Kyoto founded circa 1615 by Masatomo Sumitomo, a former Buddhist monk. Even today, management of the group is guided by his "Founder's Precepts", written in the 17th century. Copper refining made the company famous. Riemon Soga, Masatomo Sumitomo's brother-in-law, learned Western methods of copper refining.
Buke shohattoThe Buke shohatto, commonly known in English as the Laws for the Military Houses, was a collection of edicts issued by Japan's Tokugawa shogunate governing the responsibilities and activities of daimyō (feudal lords) and the rest of the samurai warrior aristocracy. These formed the basis of the bakuhan taisei (shogunate-domains system) which lay at the foundation of the Tokugawa regime. The contents of the edicts were seen as a code of conduct, a description of proper honorable daimyō behavior, and not solely laws which had to be obeyed.
RangakuRangaku (Kyūjitai: /Shinjitai: , literally "Dutch learning"), and by extension Yōgaku, is a body of knowledge developed by Japan through its contacts with the Dutch enclave of Dejima, which allowed Japan to keep abreast of Western technology and medicine in the period when the country was closed to foreigners from 1641 to 1853 because of the Tokugawa shogunate's policy of national isolation (sakoku).
Mongol invasions of JapanMajor military efforts were taken by Kublai Khan of the Yuan dynasty in 1274 and 1281 to conquer the Japanese archipelago after the submission of the Korean kingdom of Goryeo to vassaldom. Ultimately a failure, the invasion attempts are of macro-historical importance because they set a limit on Mongol expansion and rank as nation-defining events in the history of Japan. The invasions are referred to in many works of fiction and are the earliest events for which the word kamikaze (神風 "divine wind") is widely used, originating in reference to the two typhoons faced by the Yuan fleets.
Edo periodThe Edo period or Tokugawa period is the period between 1603 and 1867 in the history of Japan, when Japan was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the country's 300 regional daimyo. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengoku period, the Edo period was characterized by economic growth, strict social order, isolationist foreign policies, a stable population, perpetual peace, and popular enjoyment of arts and culture, colloquially referred to as Oedo.
KokugakuKokugaku (國學, 国学; literally "national study") was an academic movement, a school of Japanese philology and philosophy originating during the Tokugawa period. Kokugaku scholars worked to refocus Japanese scholarship away from the then-dominant study of Chinese, Confucian, and Buddhist texts in favor of research into the early Japanese classics. What later became known as the kokugaku tradition began in the 17th and 18th centuries as kogaku ("ancient studies"), wagaku ("Japanese studies") or inishie manabi ("ancient studies"), a term favored by Motoori Norinaga and his school.
Controversies surrounding Yasukuni ShrineThe controversies surrounding Yasukuni Shrine are related to the choice of Japanese people who are honoured at this nationally significant Shinto shrine and war museum in central Tokyo. Most of the venerated dead served the Emperors of Japan during wars from 1867 to 1951 but they also include civilians in service and government officials. It is the belief of Shinto that Yasukuni enshrines the actual souls of the dead, known as kami in Japanese. The kami are honoured through liturgical texts and ritual incantations known as Norito.
Senhime'Senhime|千姫 (May 26, 1597 – March 11, 1666), or Lady Sen, was the eldest daughter of the shōgun Tokugawa Hidetada and later the wife of Toyotomi Hideyori. She was remarried to Honda Tadatoki after the death of her first husband. Following the death of her second husband, she later became a Buddhist nun under the name of nihongo|Tenjuin'. She was born in 1597 as the eldest daughter of the then-daimyo and later shōgun Tokugawa Hidetada and his wife Oeyo during the Warring-States period of Japanese history.
East Asian tea ceremonyAn East Asian tea ceremony, or Chádào (), 茶道 or Dado (다도 (茶道)), is a ceremonially ritualized form of making tea (茶 cha) practiced in East Asia by the Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans. The tea ceremony (), literally translated as either "way of tea", "etiquette for tea or tea rite", or "art of tea" in any of the three East Asian languages, is a cultural activity involving the ceremonial preparation and presentation of tea.
Nippo JishoThe literally the "Japanese–Portuguese Dictionary" or Vocabulario da Lingoa de Iapam (Vocabulário da Língua do Japão in modern Portuguese; "Vocabulary of the Language of Japan" in English) is a Japanese to Portuguese dictionary compiled by Jesuit missionaries and published in Nagasaki, Japan, in 1603. Containing entries for 32,293 Japanese words with explanations in Portuguese, it was the first dictionary of Japanese to a European language. The original publication uses the Latin alphabet exclusively, without Japanese characters.
