Tag - history

 
 

HISTORY

Japan Times
BUSINESS
Dec 23, 2013
How the Federal Reserve was created
A century ago this week, Congress passed the Federal Reserve Act, creating a central bank for a nation that was only beginning its economic ascendance. This is the story of how it came to be, from a nearly catastrophic financial panic to secret meetings of plutocrats on the Georgia coast to the pitched...
Japan Times
WORLD
Dec 22, 2013
Bethlehem woos Christian emigres, visitors
There has been something missing in Bethlehem, the birthplace of Christianity: Christians.
Japan Times
WORLD
Dec 15, 2013
Mandela saw massive change in Africa
Nelson Mandela was born into a continent colonized and in servitude to European powers in July 1918. Only Ethiopia and Liberia were independent. But Germany's defeat in the first world war brought about a reworking of the colonial order with its possessions in what are now Tanzania, Cameroon, Togo, Burundi...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Dec 14, 2013
Record of Miraculous Events in Japan: The Nihon ryoiki
Compiled in the early Heian Period (794-1192), the "Nihon ryoiki" comprises the country's first major collection of anecdotal literature, or setsuwa. The collection contains 116 spoken stories over three volumes that were passed from person to person, village to village, until they were finally recorded...
Japan Times
WORLD
Dec 9, 2013
How news of the attack on Pearl Harbor broke on AP in 1941
On Dec. 7, 1941, Eugene Burns, AP's bureau chief in Honolulu, couldn't get out the news of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor because the military had taken control of all communications lines. In Washington, AP editor William Peacock got word of the attack from President Franklin D. Roosevelt's press...
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC / Science & Health
Dec 1, 2013
Painstaking work and a devoted team unearthed the Buddha's secret
When professor Robin Coningham's youngest son, Gus, was 5, he was asked at school what his father did. "He works for the Buddha," said the boy. Which led to a bit of confusion, recalls Coningham.
WORLD / Science & Health
Nov 28, 2013
Pilgrims, Indians probably related
There were no Americans at the first Thanksgiving. The newer set of immigrants, recently arrived from England, considered themselves thoroughly English.
WORLD / Science & Health
Nov 28, 2013
Researchers create database of infectious diseases
Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh have created a digital database of infectious-disease cases dating back 125 years, a treasure trove of information that could help scientists and public health officials better understand how to fight the spread of deadly afflictions.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Politics
Nov 23, 2013
Resisting the historical deniers
Shin Kawashima recalls his heart sinking with the reelection of Shinzo Abe. A specialist in Asian diplomatic history at the University of Tokyo, Kawashima has spent years trying to narrow the gap between Japan and China's strikingly different interpretations of wartime history. The election could undo...
JAPAN / Politics
Nov 23, 2013
Re-engineering Shinto
Japan's ancient, indigenous religion, premodern Shinto, was considered one of the world's least dogmatic, laidback belief systems. Many of its earthy, animist rituals were tied to a love of nature and tradition, anchored around festivals and ceremonies honoring kami (gods) found in all aspects of life....
Japan Times
WORLD
Oct 25, 2013
Man who burned White House in 1814 feted
Francis de Courcy Hamilton looked askance at the informational sign near the base of the Robert Ross monument, a 30-meter granite obelisk on a hill overlooking the majestic waters of Carlingford Lough.
Japan Times
LIFE
Oct 12, 2013
Kanpai! Sake through the ages
'A civilization stands or falls by the degree to which drink has entered the lives of its people, and from that point of view Japan must rank very high among the civilizations of the world.'
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Oct 12, 2013
One exhilarating summer brought to fact-filled life
It had to happen. After books about individual decades came books about individual years. Now we get the book about a single season. Bill Bryson's "One Summer" is the story of just four months — June to September 1927 — in the life of America. Four crucial months, needless to say — four months...
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Sep 29, 2013
Politics and pride drive Putin's anti-U.S. shift
First, Vladimir Putin accused Hillary Rodham Clinton of inciting protests against him at the end of 2011. The next fall, the Russian president threw the U.S. Agency for International Development out of his country. Then he decided civic groups that get U.S. financing must be foreign agents.
Japan Times
LIFE
Sep 28, 2013
Camera artist casts new light on Jomon millennia
The Jomon Period of Japanese history is so shrouded in the mists of time that any bid to fathom its secrets stretches even the usual bounds of prehistoric archeology. Yet as amateurs and experts alike have continued unearthing examples of Jomon pottery and stone tools for more than a century, the pieces of the puzzle are gradually coming together.
Japan Times
WORLD / Science & Health
Sep 23, 2013
Transit project brings macabre past of London to the surface
In an open pit near the old Bedlam insane asylum, where the curious once ogled chained lunatics for the price of a shiny coin, the skeletons in London's closet are climbing to the surface. And dead men do tell tales.

Longform

Construction takes place on the Takanawa Gateway Convention Center in Tokyo, slated to open in 2025.
A boom for business tourism in Japan?