Japan

The Battle of Port Arthur began on February 8th, 1904.

The Anglo-Japanese Treaty of Alliance, the first between a European country and an Asiatic power against a Western rival, was signed on January 30th, 1902.

The first Christian missionary to the country, Francis Xavier, departed from Japan on November 21st, 1551, having made perhaps some 2,000 converts.

Dan van der Vat discusses Jerry Bruckheimer's 2001 film Pearl Harbor and the lessons the US has learned from the attack.

Charles Maechling argues that the Japanese attack, which took place on December 7th 1941, was partly a response to the country's limited energy resources.

Paul Doolan describes the unique 400-year-long trading, intellectual and artistic contacts between the Dutch and the Japanese.

Mariya Sevela gathers oral recollections from the people of Karafuto, a Japanese colony on the island of Sakhalin from 1905 until the arrival of the Soviet army forty years later.

Ronan Thomas takes a look at the cultures of Korea after becoming independent from Japan in 1945.

President Harry Truman's WWI experiences are considered, and the dilemmas that influenced his decision to drop atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan 50 years ago this month are examined.

What was it like to be a 'boiled octopus' in the silk mills of Japan before the First World War? Janet Hunter looks at the life and conditions of the women who bore the brunt of Japan's rapid industrialisation.

From isolation to Great Power status - Richard Perren explains how a mania for Westernisation primed the pump of Japan's transformation at the turn of the century.

Irrational chauvinists or fearful protectionists? Gordon Daniels looks at the new research and arguments reshaping our view of Japan's rulers before and after Pearl Harbour.