Japan Timeline of Events

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Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

Timeline of Events

1943

5.11.1943

World War II: American troops invade Attu Island in the Aleutian Islands in an attempt to expel occupying Japanese forces.

7.1.1943

Tokyo City merges with Tokyo Prefecture and is dissolved. Since then, no city in Japan has had the name "Tokyo" (present-day Tokyo is not officially a city).

8.27.1943

Japanese forces evacuate New Georgia Island in the Pacific Theater of Operations during World War II.

11.20.1943

World War II: Battle of Tarawa (Operation Galvanic) begins – United States Marines land on Tarawa Atoll in the Gilbert Islands and suffer heavy fire from Japanese shore guns and machine guns.

1944

1.31.1944

World War II: American forces land on Kwajalein Atoll and other islands in the Japanese-held Marshall Islands.

2.14.1944

World War II: Anti-Japanese revolt on Java.

2.17.1944

World War II: Operation Hailstone begins. U.S. naval air, surface, and submarine attack against Truk (Chuuk), Japan's main base in the central Pacific, in support of the Eniwetok invasion.

7.18.1944

World War II: Hideki Tojo resigns as Prime Minister of Japan due to numerous setbacks in the war effort.

8.10.1944

World War II: American forces defeat the last Japanese troops on Guam.

10.20.1944

General Douglas MacArthur fulfills his promise to return to the Philippines when he commands an Allied assault on the islands, reclaiming them from the Japanese during the Second World War.

10.21.1944

The first kamikaze attack: A Japanese plane carrying a convert 200 bomb attacks HMAS Australia off Leyte Island, as the Battle of Leyte Gulf began.

10.24.1944

World War II: The Japanese aircraft carrier ''Zuikaku'', and the battleship Musashi are sunk in the Battle of Leyte Gulf.

11.6.1944

Plutonium is first produced at the Hanford Atomic Facility and subsequently used in the Fat Man atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki, Japan.

12.22.1944

World War II: The People's Army of Vietnam is formed to resist Japanese occupation of Indo-China, now Vietnam.

1945

1.3.1945

World War II: Admiral Chester W Nimitz is placed in command of all U.S. Naval forces in preparation for planned assaults against Iwo Jima, Okinawa and Japan.

2.21.1945

World War II: Japanese Kamikaze planes sink the escort carrier Bismarck Sea and damage the Saratoga.

3.16.1945

World War II: The Battle of Iwo Jima ends but small pockets of Japanese resistance persist.

3.19.1945

World War II: Off the coast of Japan, a dive bomber hits the aircraft carrier USS Franklin, killing 724 of her crew. Badly damaged, the ship is able to return to the U.S. under her own power.

8.8.1945

World War II: the Soviet Union declares war on Japan and begins the Manchurian Strategic Offensive Operation.

8.14.1945

Japan accepts the Allied terms of surrender in World War II and the Emperor records the Imperial Rescript on Surrender (August 15 in Japan standard time).

8.16.1945

An assassination attempt is made on Japan's prime minister, Kantaro Suzuki.

8.25.1945

Ten days after World War II ends with Japan announcing its surrender, armed supporters of the Communist Party of China kill Baptist missionary John Birch, regarded by some of the American right as the first victim of the Cold War.

8.30.1945

Hong Kong is liberated from Japan by British Armed Forces.

9.7.1945

Japanese forces on Wake Island, which they had held since December of 1941, surrender to U.S. Marines.

9.9.1945

Second Sino-Japanese War: Japan formally surrenders to China.

9.11.1945

World War II: Australian 9th Division forces liberate the Japanese-run Batu Lintang camp, a POW and civilian internment camp on the island of Borneo.

10.25.1945

The Republic of China takes over administration of Taiwan following Japan's surrender to the Allies.

12.15.1945

Occupation of Japan: General Douglas MacArthur orders that Shinto be abolished as the state religion of Japan.

1946

4.29.1946

Former Prime Minister of Japan Hideki Tojo and 28 former Japanese leaders are indicted for war crimes.

7.20.1946

World War II: The US Congress's Pearl Harbor Committee says Franklin D. Roosevelt is completely blameless for the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and calls for a unified command structure in the armed forces.

1948

11.12.1948

In Tokyo, an international war crimes tribunal sentences seven Japanese military and government officials, including General Hideki Tojo, to death for their roles in World War II.

1950

7.2.1950

The Golden Pavilion at Kinkaku-ji in Kyoto, Japan burns down.

1951

9.8.1951

Treaty of San Francisco: In San Francisco, California, 48 nations sign a peace treaty with Japan in formal recognition of the end of the Pacific War.

1953

6.18.1953

A United States Air Force C-124 crashes and burns near Tokyo, Japan killing 129.

8.28.1953

Nippon Television broadcasts Japan's first television show, including its first TV advertisement.

1954

9.26.1954

Japanese rail ferry ''Toya Maru'' sinks during a typhoon in the Tsugaru Strait, Japan killing 1,172.

9.26.1954

Japanese rail ferry ''Toya Maru'' sinks during a typhoon in the Tsugaru Strait, Japan killing 1,172.

1955

8.7.1955

Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering, the precursor to Sony, sells its first transistor radios in Japan.

1956

1.1.1956

A new year event causes panic and stampedes at Yahiko Shrine, Yahiko, central Niigata, Japan, killing at least 124 people.

5.1.1956

A doctor in Japan reports an "epidemic of an unknown disease of the central nervous system", marking the official discovery of Minamata disease.

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