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OLYMPICS 2021 >> HOST CITY HISTORY
2021 OLYMPIC HOST CITY
A MODERN CITY WITH AN ANCIENT HISTORY
Tokyo W R I T T E N B Y J O A N N A G R E Y TA L B O T
The name Tokyo generates many mental images—samurai, skyscrapers, tea ceremonies, a rampaging Gojira (Godzilla), sushi, crowds of pedestrians, kimonos, and cherry blossoms. The land that we now know as the country of Japan has been inhabited since the Stone Age so although modern vistas may come to mind when picturing Tokyo, it is a city that is not lacking for history. Japan received its first visitors from the Western world in 1543 when Portuguese merchants on their way to China were blown off course and landed on Tanegashima, one of the Japanese islands south of the mainland. Six years later the Jesuit missionary Francis Xavier arrived and worked to convert the Japanese to Christianity. He and his fellow Jesuits were welcomed at first but by the 1590s the ruling military powers began to turn against them. The era of the Tokugawa shogunate began in 1600 after 30 |
OUR TOWN MAGAZINE
JULY/AUGUST 2021
Ieyasu, the first Tokugawa shogun, or ruler, destroyed the forces of the other major military rulers in the Battle of Sekigahara. Prior to Tokugawa, Japan was ruled by provincial military rulers called daimy , who were supported by their samurai warriors. The imperial family lived in Kyoto but at this time was nothing more than figureheads. The real power belonged to the one who controlled the military and had the loyalty of the daimy . In 1603 Ieyasu had Emperor Go-Y zei grant him the title of shogun and he moved his headquarters to the coastal town of Edo, the future Tokyo. In 1639 the shogun, Tokugawa Iemitsu, alarmed at the influence of the West and its ever-growing desire to expand, closed all of Japan’s ports to foreign trade. Foreigners could not come in and Japanese could not leave. The Tokugawa shogunate continued its policy of total isolation for another 228 years.