Bakumatsu was the final years of the Edo period when the Tokugawa shogunate ended. Between 1853 and 1867, under foreign diplomatic and military pressure, Japan ended its isolationist foreign policy known as sakoku and changed from a feudal Tokugawa shogunate to the modern empire of the Meiji government. The major ideological-political divide during this period was between the pro-imperial nationalists called ishin shishi and the shogunate forces, which included the elite shinsengumi swordsmen.
Shimoda is a city and port located in Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan. As of 1 February 2024, the city had an estimated population of 19,670 in 10,436 households, and a population density of 188 persons per square kilometre. The total area of the city is 104.71 square kilometres (40.43 sq mi). In the 1850s, Japan was in political crisis over its increasing inability to maintain its national seclusion policy and the issue of what relations, if any, it should have with foreign powers. For a few years, Shimoda was central to this debate.
Izu Province was a province of Japan in the area of Shizuoka Prefecture. Izu bordered on Sagami and Suruga Provinces. Its abbreviated form name was Zushū (豆州).
Tokugawa Iesada was the 13th shōgun of the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan. He held office for five years from 1853 to 1858. He was physically weak and was therefore considered by later historians to have been unfit to be shōgun. His reign marks the beginning of the Bakumatsu period.
The Black Ships were the Western vessels arriving in Japan in the 16th and 19th centuries.
The Treaty of Shimoda of February 7, 1855, was the first treaty between the Russian Empire, and the Empire of Japan, then under the administration of the Tokugawa shogunate. Following shortly after the Convention of Kanagawa signed between Japan and the United States, it effectively meant the end of Japan's 220-year-old policy of national seclusion (sakoku), by opening the ports of Nagasaki, Shimoda and Hakodate to Russian vessels and established the position of Russian consuls in Japan and defined the borders between Japan and Russia.
Townsend Harris was an American merchant and politician who served as the first United States Consul General to Japan. He negotiated the Harris Treaty between the US and Japan and is credited as the diplomat who first opened Shogunate Japan to foreign trade and culture in the Edo period.
The Treaty of Amity and Commerce between Japan and the United States, also called the Harris Treaty was a treaty signed between the United States and Tokugawa Shogunate, which opened the ports of Kanagawa and four other Japanese cities to trade and granted extraterritoriality to foreigners, among a number of trading stipulations. It was signed on the deck of the USS Powhatan in Edo Bay on July 29, 1858.
The Roots of Heaven is a 1958 American adventure film made for 20th Century Fox, directed by John Huston and produced by Darryl F. Zanuck. The screenplay by Romain Gary and Patrick Leigh Fermor is based on Romain Gary's 1956 Prix Goncourt-winning novel of the same name. The film stars Errol Flynn, Juliette Gréco, Trevor Howard, Eddie Albert, Orson Welles, Paul Lukas, Herbert Lom and Grégoire Aslan. Huston later said that Roots of Heaven "could have been a very fine film. And largely owing to me was not a good film at all."
The Embassy of the United States of America in Tokyo represents the United States in Tokyo, Japan. Along with consulates in Osaka, Nagoya, Sapporo, Fukuoka, and Naha, the Embassy provides assistance to American citizens and residents who live in Japan and issues visas to Japanese nationals, and legal residents in Japan who wish to visit or immigrate to the United States.
Zenpuku-ji (善福寺), also known as Azabu-san (麻布山), is a Jōdo Shinshū temple located in the Azabu district of Tokyo, Japan. It is one of the oldest Tokyo temples, after Asakusa.
Gyokusen-ji (玉泉寺) is a Buddhist temple located in the city of Shimoda, Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan. It is noteworthy in that it served as the first American consulate in Japan. The temple and its grounds were designated as a National Historic Site of Japan in 1951.
Eiko Ando was a Japanese-American actress best known for her role as Okichi opposite John Wayne in The Barbarian and the Geisha in 1958.
The Judith of Shimoda is a play attributed to Bertolt Brecht. Long believed to be incomplete, a full German playscript of The Judith of Shimoda was reconstructed by Hans Peter Neureuter and published by Suhrkamp (Frankfurt/Main) in 2006. Markus Wessendorf's 2008 translation of this playscript into English received its first stage production in April 2010 at the Kennedy Theatre in Honolulu and was published in 2019 in a collection of Brecht's dramatic fragments.
Hendrick Conrad Joannes Heusken was a Dutch American interpreter for the first American consulate in Japan, established at Gyokusen-ji in Shimoda, Shizuoka in the late Bakumatsu period. He played an important role in the negotiations for the "Harris Treaty", which opened commercial relations between Japan and America, and his assassination caused a minor diplomatic crisis between Japan and the various Western powers.
Sō Yamamura, sometimes credited as Satoshi Yamamura, was a Japanese actor and film director.
Kurofune is a 1940 Japanese-language western-style opera by Kosaku Yamada, which is regarded as the first Japanese opera. It is based on the Black Ships story of Tōjin Okichi a geisha "caught up in the turmoil that swept Japan in the waning years of the Tokugawa shogunate".
The Treaty of Amity and Commerce between Japan and the Netherlands was signed between the Netherlands and Tokugawa Shogunate in Edo on August 18, 1858. It opened several Japanese ports and cities for Dutch trade and confirmed extraterritoriality to Dutch nationals in Japan. It was one of the so-called Ansei Treaties.
Consulate-General of the United States in Sapporo is a consulate-general of the United States located in Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan. It was established on April 28, 1952.
