History of Tokyo

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Former Edo Castle, now the Kokyo Imperial Palace.

Marker in Nihonbashi from which distances are measured in Japan.

Graves of 47 Ronin at Sengakuji Temple. See year 1701.

Sakuradamon Gate of Edo Castle where Ii Naosuke was assassinated in 1860.

The Hoei Crater, visible to the right of the peak of Mt. Fuji, was the location of the 1707 eruption that spewed ash as far as Edo.

Tokyo Tower was built in 1958. It was built by recycle of war tank.

Statue of Saigo Takamori in Ueno Park.

A map from the 1888 Meyers Konversations-Lexikon Encyclopedia shows the old German name for Tokyo, Jedo.

The new Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building was built in 1991 at Shinjuku, Tokyo.

The mainland area now occupied by Tokyo was, together with modern-day Saitama Prefecture and the cities of Kawasaki and the eastern part of Yokohama, established in the 7th century as Musashi, one of the province under the ritsuryō system. Small parts were in Shimosa Province. The central part of the 23 special wards lay in Toshima, Ebara, Adachi, and (in Shimosa) Katsushika Districts. Western Tokyo occupied Tama District. Tokyo's oldest Buddhist temple, Sensō-ji in Asakusa, is said to date from the year 645.

In the Kamakura period, the village of Edo appeared. The construction of Edo Castle by Ōta Dōkan, a vassal of Uesugi Mochitomo, began in 1457 during the Muromachi period in what is now the East Garden of the Imperial Palace. Hōjō Ujitsuna entered Edo Castle in 1524, and Tokugawa Ieyasu moved there in 1590.

1 Edo period
2 Modern History
3 Anticipated events
4 See also
5 External links

[edit] Edo period

The Edo period began when Tokugawa Ieyasu became shogun in 1603, and the city developed rapidly under his successors. The construction of Edo Castle, including the main tower, was finally completed in 1637. In 1657, the Great Fire of Meireki destroyed much of the Yoshiwara red-light district, Asakusa, and Edo Castle. 100,000 people died.

In 1701, in the shogun's palace, Asano Naganori drew his sword and cut Kira Yoshinaka, the highest-ranking master of protocol. Asano was immediately forced to commit seppuku. At the end of the following year, his 47 masterless retainers avenged their master's death by attacking and beheading Kira at his residence in Ryōgoku. This story of loyalty soon became a timeless classic known as Chushingura.

Mount Fuji erupted and spewed ash on Edo in 1707. Nature struck again in 1855 with the Great Edo Earthquake.

The bakumatsu era saw an increase in political activity. In 1860 Ii Naosuke, who favored opening Japan to the West, was assassinated by anti-foreign rebel samurai. 1867 Japan's last shogun, Tokugawa Yoshinobu, surrendered power to the emperor in 1867 and fled Edo in 1868 following military defeat by powerful provincial powers seeking power in the name of the Emperor.

[edit] Modern History

1868 With the Meiji Restoration, the ruler of Japan shifts from the shogun to an oligarchy ruling under the banner of the emperor. Edo is renamed as "Tokyo (Tokio)," meaning "Eastern Capital," as ordered by Emperor Meiji.
1869 Emperor Meiji moves to Tokyo and makes Tokyo Castle, the Imperial Palace. However, the capital was never legally "transferred" from Kyoto to Tokyo, making some people believe that Kyoto may still be the capital, or a co-capital today. See: Capital of Japan. Samurai from the Satsuma and Chōshū (and other) regions, having defeated the Tokugawa, take crucial roles in the new ruling oligarchy. A foreigner settlement is established at Tsukiji.
1871 The feudal han system is abolished to establish the prefectural system. Tokyo Prefecture is thereby established.
1872 Tokyo Prefecture expands to include what is now the 23 wards. Also, Tokyo's (and Japan's) first rail line opens between Shinbashi (now Shiodome) and Yokohama (now Sakuragicho).
1874 The Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department is established.
1882 Ueno Zoo is completed.
1885 The first section of what was to become the Yamanote Line opens between Akabane and Shinagawa Stations. Train stations such as Shibuya and Shinjuku Stations open as a result.
1889 Tokyo City is established with 15 wards.
1893 The three Tama districts are admitted into Tokyo Prefecture.
1898 The special city ordinance for Tokyo city is abolished, making Tokyo city a normal city.
1899 The foreigner settlement at Tsukiji is abolished.
1914 Tokyo Station opens.
1923 The Great Kantō earthquake strikes Tokyo, killing approximately 70,000 people. A massive reconstruction plan was drawn up, but was too expensive to complete.
1925 The Yamanote Line looping train line is finally completed when the section between Kanda and Ueno Stations is completed. Construction first started in 1885.
1927 Tokyo's first subway (Ginza Line) opens between Asakusa and Ueno.
1932 Five districts and 82 towns and villages are admitted to Tokyo city which then has 35 wards.
1936 The National Diet Building is completed. In an attempted coup (the February 26 Incident), nearly 1500 junior officers of Japan's army occupied the National Diet Building, the Kantei (Prime Minister's Residence) and other key locations in Tokyo. The coup was suppressed by the Army and Navy within three days.
1942 Tokyo suffers the Doolittle Raid, its first air raid by US bombers, soon after the Pearl Harbor attack on Dec. 1941.
1943 Tokyo Prefecture and Tokyo city merge to form Tokyo Metropolis or Tokyo-to, commonly called "Tokyo." Since this time, no city in Japan has had the name "Tokyo."
1945 Tokyo was heavily bombed, and much of the city was burned to the ground by heavy bombardment by B-29 and other aircraft. Extensive tracts of land were leveled both by the explosions and by the subsequent fires. The damage was not limited to the former Tokyo City, but extended to Hachioji and other cities in western Tokyo, as the bombers targeted air bases, transportation facilities, and strategically important manufacturing plants. Due to the heavy death toll and populace fleeing to the countryside, the population in 1945 was only half that of 1940. From September on, Tokyo is under military occupation and governed by the allied forces. General Douglas MacArthur established the occupation headquarters in what is now the DN Tower 21 (formerly the Dai-Ichi Seimei building) overlooking the Imperial Palace. The American presence in Tokyo made it an important command and logistics center during the Korean War. Tokyo still hosts Yokota Air Base and a small number of minor U.S. military installations.
1947 Tokyo's wards is reduced to 23 which then become special wards.
1954 The Marunouchi Line, Tokyo's second subway line, opens between Ikebukuro and Ochanomizu.
1958 Tokyo Tower is completed.
1961 The Hibiya subway line opens between Minami-senju and Naka-Okachimachi.
1964 The Tōkaidō Shinkansen opens on October 1 in time for the Tokyo Olympic Games starting on October 10. Tokyo's re-emergence from wartime trauma was complete at the 1964 Summer Olympics, which publicized the city on an international stage and brought global attention to the "economic miracle".
1968 The Ogasawara Islands (Bonin Islands) are returned to Japan and become part of Tokyo.
1977 Tachikawa Air Force Base is returned to Japan and later converted partially into a park.
1978 The New Tokyo International Airport (now Narita International Airport) in nearby Chiba Prefecture opens. Tokyo International Airport (Haneda Airport) then serves mainly domestic flights.
1986 The bubble economy starts with land prices skyrocketing.
1988 The Tokyo Dome indoor baseball stadium is completed.
1990 The bubble economy starts to pop, triggering a fall in land prices in Tokyo and everywhere in Japan.
1991 The new Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building in Shinjuku is completed.
1993 The Rainbow Bridge is completed.
1995 On March 20, the Aum Shinrikyo cult spread Sarin nerve gas on the Tokyo subway system (in the tunnels beneath the political district of central Tokyo) in which 12 people were killed and thousands affected (see Sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway). Newly-elected Tokyo governor Yukio Aoshima announces that he will keep his campaign promise and cancel the World City Expo that was to be held in 1996 in the Odaiba waterfront area.
1999 Shintaro Ishihara is elected Governor of Tokyo.
2000 The Oedo subway line opens.
2003 Shintaro Ishihara is reelected Governor of Tokyo. Roppongi Hills opens.
2005 The Tsukuba Express railway line opens.

[edit] Anticipated events

2007 Completion of Tokyo Midtown Project (the city's tallest high-rise construction) and the Tokyo Metro Line 13.
2011 Completion of Sumida Tower, Japan's tallest structure (About 610m high displacing the CN Tower in Toronto as the world's tallest free-standing structure.) Completion of the renovation of Tokyo Station.