* 1869 – The Meiji government in Japan establishes six new ministries, including one for Shinto.

Celibacy was advocated as an ideal rule of life for all monks and nuns by Gautama Buddha, except for Japan where it is not strictly followed due to historical political developments following the Meiji Restoration.

The Kanagawa treaty became a significant causative factor leading to serious internal conflicts within Japan — an upheaval which was only resolved in 1867 with the end of the Tokugawa shogunate and the beginning of the Meiji Restoration.

Before the Meiji Restoration, Japan had eleven reigns of reigning empresses, all of them daughters of the male line of the Imperial House.

Article 2 of the 1889 Meiji Constitution ( the Constitution of the Empire of Japan ) stated, " The Imperial Throne shall be succeeded to by imperial male descendants, according to the provisions of the Imperial House Law.

In 1872, the Meiji government proclaimed 11 February 660 BC, in the Gregorian calendar the foundation day of Japan, which was then commemorated as the holiday Kigensetsu (" Era Day ") until 1948.

* 1889 – Meiji Constitution of Japan is adopted ; the first Diet of Japan convenes in 1890.

Some key elements of the German Empire's authoritarian political structure were also the basis for conservative modernization in Imperial Japan under Meiji and the preservation of an authoritarian political structure under the Tsars in the Russian Empire.

An IKEA 4. 5 Museum display at the outer precinct of the Meiji Shrine in Tokyo, Japan

In the same period, the Empire of Japan, following the Meiji Restoration ; the German Empire, following the end of the Franco-Prussian War in 1871 ; Tsarist Russia ; and the United States, following the Spanish-American War in 1898, quickly emerged as new imperial powers in East Asia and in the Pacific Ocean area.

* Demographics of Japan before Meiji Restoration

Since the mid-19th century, after the Meiji restoration, the country was opened up to Western commerce and influence and Japan has gone through two periods of economic development.

During the Meiji period ( 1868 – 1912 ), leaders inaugurated a new Western-based education system for all young people, sent thousands of students to the United States and Europe, and hired more than 3, 000 Westerners to teach modern science, mathematics, technology, and foreign languages in Japan ( Oyatoi gaikokujin ).

With the fall of the Tokugawa shogunate in the Meiji Restoration of 1868, jujutsu had become unfashionable in an increasingly westernised Japan.

* 1868 – Meiji Restoration in Japan: The Tokugawa shogunate is abolished ; agents of Satsuma and Chōshū seize power.

He lectured in Japan with Dr. Jerald Walker at Meiji University and Chiba University.

In 1904, the Emperor Meiji of Japan honored Takamine with an unusual gift.

At the beginning of the Meiji Period ( 1868 – 1912 ), western music was introduced to Japan.

The arrival of Matthew Perry in 1853 and the subsequent Convention of Kanagawa forcibly reintroduced Japan to the outside world ; the rapid modernization of the Meiji Restoration soon followed.

Kagoshima was the birthplace and scene of the last stand of Saigō Takamori, a legendary figure in Meiji Japan in 1877 at the end of the Satsuma Rebellion.

Labour unions emerged in Japan in the second half of the Meiji period as the country underwent a period of rapid industrialization.

After the Meiji Restoration ( 1868 ), the Japanese government adopted a policy of turning Japan into a great economic and military power in East Asia.

In Japan, the same period marks the formation of the modern forms of judo, jujitsu, karate, and kendo ( among others ) based on revivals of old schools of Edo period martial arts which had been suppressed during the Meiji Restoration.

* 1867 – Tokugawa Shogunate hands power back to the Emperor of Japan, starting the Meiji Restoration.

During the Meiji Restoration, the head of the Koga family was given the title of marquis ( 侯爵 kōshaku ) as part of the kazoku, the hereditary peerage that combined the kuge and the daimyo.

* Keiō 4: On the 27th day of the 8th month ( October 12, 1868 ), Emperor Meiji was crowned in the Shishin-den in Kyoto.

* Keiō 4: On the eighth day of the ninth month ( October 23, 1868 ), the nengō was formally changed from Keiō to Meiji and a general amnesty was granted.

* Meiji 2: On the 23rd day of the 10th month ( 1868 ), the emperor went to Tokyo and Edo castle became an imperial palace.

However, the attempt did set the stage for the arrival of state Shinto, following the Meiji Restoration ( c. 1868 ), when Shinto and Buddhism were separated ( shinbutsu bunri ).

Although the original meaning of " shogun " is simply " a general ", as a title, it is used as the short form of seii taishōgun ( 征夷大将軍 ), the governing individual at various times in the history of Japan, ending when Tokugawa Yoshinobu relinquished the office to the Meiji Emperor in 1867.

# Modern Era ( post 1867, divided into Meiji ( 1868 – 1912 ), Taishō ( 1912 – 1926 ) and Shōwa ( from 1927 )).

In the Bakumatsu or early Meiji period ( c. 1865-8 ), the 25 year-old servant Sokichi was executed by crucifixion for the murder of the son of his employer, a store-owner, during the course of a robbery.

By the time of the Meiji Restoration ( 1868 ), the tradition of the shinobi had become a topic of popular imagination and mystery in Japan.

It was because of his series of lectures he delivered in Japan revolutionizing its educational methods, that he was the first foreigner to receive the Second Class honor ( conferred by the Meiji Emperor in 1907 ) and the Third Class honor ( conferred by The Meiji Emperor in 1899 ), Orders of the Rising Sun.

The Constitution of the Empire of Japan of 1890 ( commonly called the " Meiji Constitution ", after the emperor during whose reign it was composed ), was the fundamental law of the former state.

Emperor Showa ( known to the West as Hirohito ), Prime Minister Shidehara Kijuro and most of the cabinet members were extremely reluctant to take the drastic step of replacing the 1889 Meiji Constitution with a more liberal document.

Although the document's authors were non-Japanese, they took into account the Meiji Constitution, the demands of Japanese lawyers, the opinions of pacifist political leaders such as Shidehara and Yoshida Shigeru, and especially the draft presented by the Constitution Research Association ( Kempo Kenku-kai ) under the chairmanship of Suzuki Yasuzo ( 1904-1983 ), which had been translated into English in its entirety already at the end of December 1945.

When the Meiji government began to create the prefectural system in 1868, the nine bugyō-ruled zones became fu ( 府 ), while the township-ruled zones and the rest of the bugyo-ruled zones became ken ( 県 ).

The Meiji government originally classified Hokkaidō as a " Settlement Envoyship " ( 開拓使 kaitakushi ), and later divided the island into three prefectures ( Sapporo, Hakodate, and Nemuro ).

One of the Meiji oligarchy, Itō Hirobumi ( 1841 – 1909 ), a Chōshū native long involved in government affairs, was charged with drafting Japan's constitution.

When finally granted by the emperor as a sign of his sharing his authority and giving rights and liberties to his subjects, the 1889 Constitution of the Empire of Japan ( the Meiji Constitution ) provided for the Imperial Diet ( Teikoku Gikai ), composed of a popularly elected House of Representatives with a very limited franchise of male citizens who were over twenty-five years of age and paid fifteen yen in national taxes, about one percent of the population, and the House of Peers, composed of nobility and imperial appointees ; and a cabinet responsible to the emperor and independent of the legislature.

In 1902, the Meiji Emperor allowed him to reestablish his own house as a Tokugawa branch ( bekke ) with the highest rank in the peerage, that of prince ( kōshaku ), for his loyal service to Japan.

In the Meiji Period ( 1868 to 1912 ), the first ekibentō or ekiben ( or, " train station bento ") was sold.

During the Meiji Era, three men became pioneers in collecting ningya, Kurihara Sokosut ( 1851-113 ), Nishizawa, Senko ( 1864 – 1914 ), and Tsuboi Shogoro ( 1863 – 1913 ).