Mention Japanese history to a non-Japanese, and the first thing that will likely come to mind is the samurai, the legendary warrior elite who ruled the country for over 1,000 years. But how did they meet their end?

With their two swords, top-knot haircut, and legendary code of honor, the samurai were the absolute, unquestioned rulers of the country. That all began to change rapidly when the “black ships” of US Commodore Matthew Perry arrived in Tokyo Bay in 1853.

Since 1600, the Japanese had been closed off from the world. This began during the era of the Tokugawa shoguns, the family of generals who ruled Japan in the name of the emperor. Their reign ended in the early 1860s when the people of Japan realized that living in the past (under the samurai) had put them at a great disadvantage to the Western nations.

Between 1868 and 1912, Japan rose from a country stuck in the 17th century to a world power that defeated both China and Russia at war. In the 1920s and 1930s, Japan went from an evolving democracy to a resurgent military government, which attempted to dominate much of Asia and the Pacific. That effort ended with the two atomic bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Japan yet again “rose from the ashes” and rebuilt itself as a modern Western-style democratic government and economic powerhouse. Today, the Japanese economy is the third-largest in the world, and Japanese culture is celebrated worldwide for its ancient wisdom, food, culture, and much more.

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