Search Results: Ako Incident

Kanadehon Chushingura (A Treasury of Loyalty of Loyal Retainers or The Story of the Forty-Seven Samurai) is the most popular play in the history of Japanese theatre, first performed in 1748. It is a work of fiction, but the details of the...

Tokugawa Tsunayoshi (1646-1709) governed Japan as the fifth shogun of the Edo period (1603-1876). He has often been ridiculed as the 'dog shogun' because of the laws he enacted to protect the lives of animals. Economically, however, the period...

Chikamatsu Monzaemon (1653-1725) was a Japanese playwright who wrote for both the puppet theatre and kabuki. He is regarded as Japan’s greatest dramatist. Apart from their aesthetic appeal, his plays are of value because they provide an insight...

The Edo period refers to the years from 1603 until 1868 when the Tokugawa family ruled Japan. The era is named after the city of Edo, modern-day Tokyo, where the Tokugawa shogunate had its government. It is also sometimes referred to as the...

Sakuradamon Incident, 1860, by an unknown Japanese artist.

The ronin attack the principal gate of Kira's mansion, by Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849), Act XI, Scene 2 of the Chushingura.

The Black Hole of Calcutta refers to a prison cell which was used to hold 146 mostly British prisoners captured after the Nawab of Bengal had taken over the city from the East India Company. Interred on 20 June 1756 in a tiny cell in Fort...

New Testament studies now place Jesus Christ within the parameters of Second Temple Judaism in the 1st century CE, attempting to go behind the layers of later Christian theology and philosophy (such as the trinity) to understand how his message...

War tales (gunki monogatari) is a genre of historical writing that developed in Japan from the Heian Period (794-1185) to the Muromachi Period (1333-1573). They form an important element in the development of the Japanese literary tradition...

The story of the forty-seven samurai is a well-known tale not only in Japan but also around the world. There are many different versions but the plot always revolves around a group of warriors carrying out a vendetta in order to get revenge...