The posting system is a baseball player transfer system currently in effect between Japan's Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) and the United States' Major League Baseball (MLB). NPB players have never been eligible to be obtained through the traditional means of the Rule 4 Draft, and since there were no set legal rules in place to govern the process, problems arose. The system was implemented for two reasons. First, the NPB players Hideo Nomo and Alfonso Soriano used loopholes to void contracts and leave for the MLB - possibly taking fans with them. Second, NPB player Hideki Irabu had very little negotiating power when it came to his trade deal between NPB and MLB teams. By creating a system that requires MLB teams to pay NPB teams transfer fees while allowing players the power to negotiate their own trade deals, the posting system presumably was meant to solve both problems. As of 2008, twelve Japanese players have been "posted" using the system. Of these, seven were immediately signed to Major League contracts, three were signed to minor league contracts and two were unsuccessful in drawing any MLB interest. The two highest-profile players that have been acquired through the posting system are Ichiro Suzuki and Daisuke Matsuzaka. Respectively, they attracted high bids of $13.125 million and $51.1 million and have enjoyed highly successful careers in the MLB. (Full article...)
Banknotes: Empire of Japan. Reproduction: National Numismatic Collection, National Museum of American History at the Smithsonian Institution
The Japanese-issued Netherlands Indies gulden was the currency issued by the Japanese Empire when it occupied the Dutch East Indies during World War II. Following the Dutch capitulation in March 1942, the Japanese closed all banks, seized assets and currency, and assumed control of the economy in the territory. They began issuing military banknotes, as had previously been done in other occupied territories. These were printed in Japan, but retained the name of the pre-war currency and replaced the Dutch gulden at par. From 1943 the military banknotes were replaced by identical bank-issued notes printed within the territory, and the currency was renamed the roepiah from 1944. The currency was replaced by the Indonesian rupiah in 1946, one year after the Japanese surrender and the country's independence.
This note, denominated five cents, is part of the 1942 series.
Before the outbreak of World War I, German naval ships were located in the Pacific; Tsingtao developed into a major seaport while the surrounding Kiautschou Bay area was leased to Germany since 1898. During the war, Japanese and British Allied troops besieged the port in 1914 before capturing it from the German and Austro-Hungarian Central Powers, occupying the city and the surrounding region. It served as a base for the exploitation of the natural resources of Shandong province and northern China, and a "New City District" was established to furnish the Japanese colonists with commercial sections and living quarters. Tsingtao eventually reverted to Chinese rule by 1922.
Asahi Breweries is a Japanese global beer, spirits, soft drinks and food business group. This photograph, taken during the blue hour with a full moon, shows the headquarters of Asahi Breweries in Sumida, Tokyo, as viewed from the wharf on the Sumida River near Azuma Bridge. The Asahi Beer Hall, topped by the Asahi Flame, designed by Philippe Starck, is visible on the right, with the Tokyo Skytree in the background on the left.
The siege of Osaka was a series of battles undertaken by the Japanese Tokugawa shogunate against the Toyotomi clan, and ending in the clan's dissolution. Divided into two stages (the winter campaign and the summer campaign), and lasting from 1614 to 1615, the siege put an end to the last major armed opposition to the shogunate's establishment. This eight-metre-long (26 ft) painting, titled The Summer Battle of Osaka Castle and executed on a Japanese folding screen, illustrates Osaka Castle under siege, and was commissioned by the daimyoKuroda Nagamasa, who took a team of painters with him to the battlefield to record the event. The painting depicts 5071 people and 21 generals, and is held in the collection of Osaka Castle.
Hokusai's South Wind, Clear Sky (also known as Red Fuji), from his seminal work 36 Views of Mount Fuji, is one of the most iconic representations of the Japanese style of art known as ukiyo-e.
The Japanese government-issued dollar was a form of currency issued between 1942 and 1945 for use within the territories of Singapore, Malaya, North Borneo, Sarawak and Brunei, under occupation by Imperial Japan during World War II. The currency, informally referred to as "banana money", was released solely in the form of banknotes, as metals were considered essential to the war effort. The languages used on the notes were reduced to English and Japanese. Each note bears a different obverse and reverse design, but all have a similar layout, and were marked with stamped block letters that begin with "M" for "Malaya". This 1944 one-hundred-dollar Japanese-issued banknote, depicting a Malay house with palm trees on the obverse, and a man with water buffaloes in a stream on the reverse, is part of the National Numismatic Collection at the Smithsonian Institution.
Other denominations: '"`UNIQ--templatestyles-00000010-QINU`"'
A registration card for Louis Wijnhamer (1904–1975), an ethnic Dutch humanitarian who was captured soon after the Empire of Japan occupied the Dutch East Indies in March 1942. Prior to the occupation, many ethnic Europeans had refused to leave, expecting the Japanese occupation government to keep a Dutch administration in place. When Japanese troops took control of government infrastructure and services such as ports and postal services, 100,000 European (and some Chinese) civilians were interned in prisoner-of-war camps where the death rates were between 13 and 30 per cent. Wijnhamer was interned in a series of camps throughout Southeast Asia and, after the surrender of Japan, returned to what was now Indonesia, where he lived until his death.
Flowering Plum Tree (after Hiroshige), a copy of the ukiyo-e woodblock print Plum Park in Kameido by the Japanese artist Hiroshige. Completed in 1887, this painting is one of several Japanese-influenced works created by Vincent van Gogh after the opening up of Japan. In his copy, van Gogh ignored the shading present in the trunk and background of Hiroshige's image, which there implied age, and instead used colours with more "passion" and "youthfulness".
One part of five in the set Extermination of Evil, this hanging scrolls was originally part of a handscroll known as the "second edition of the Masuda family Hell Scroll" before being cut into sections. The God of Heavenly Punishment is shown consuming the ox-headed deity Gozu Tennō, the god of pestilence.
Female internees practicing calisthenics at Manzanar War Relocation Center, Owens Valley, California. In 1943, photographer Ansel Adams followed an invitation by newly appointed camp director Ralph Merritt to photograph the everyday life of the Japanese American internees in the camp. Adams's intent was to "show how these people, suffering under a great injustice, (…) had overcome the sense of defeat and despair by building for themselves a vital community in an arid (but magnificent) environment."
Once the will is resolved, one’s spirit is strengthened. Even a peasant's will is hard to deny, but a samurai of resolute will can sway ten thousand men.
”
— Yoshida Shoin, scholar, military and political philosopher and teacher
Ono grew up in Tokyo and moved to New York City in 1952 to join her family. She became involved with New York City's downtown artists scene in the early 1960s, which included the Fluxus group, and became well known in 1969 when she married English musician John Lennon of the Beatles, with whom she would subsequently record as a duo in the Plastic Ono Band. The couple used their honeymoon as a stage for public protests against the Vietnam War with what they called a bed-in. She and Lennon remained married until he was murdered in front of the couple's apartment building, the Dakota, on December 8, 1980. Together they had one son, Sean, who later also became a musician. (Full article...)
Shimane Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Chūgoku region on Honshūisland. The capital is Matsue. It is the second least populous prefecture in Japan, next to the Tottori Prefecture that is a neighboring prefecture on the east side. The prefecture has an area elongated from east to west facing the Chūgoku Mountain Range on the south side and to the Sea of Japan on the north side. Most of the cities are near the shoreline of the Sea of Japan. There is Izumo Taisha in Izumo City, which is one of the oldest Shinto shrines in Japan. The Oki Islands in the Sea of Japan are also part of Shimane Prefecture, which also claims to have jurisdiction over the South Korea-controlled island of Liancourt Rocks (Takeshima). The history of Shimane starts with the Japanese mythology. Shinto god Ōkuninushi was believed to be living in Izumo, an old province in Shimane. The Izumo Shrine, which is in the city of Izumo, honors the god. At that time, the current Shimane prefecture was divided in to 3 parts, Iwami, Izumo, and Oki. That lasted until the abolition of the han system took place in 1871. During the Nara period, Kakinomoto no Hitomaro read a poem on Shimane's nature when he was sent as the Royal governor. Later on in the Kamakura period, Kamakura Shogunate forces emperorsGotoba and Emperor Godaigo to exile to Oki. Emperor Godaigo later gets away from Oki and begins rallying against the shogunate, which later succeeds. During the Muromachi period, Izumo and Oki were controlled by the Kyogoku clan.
Image 3A social hierarchy chart based on old academic theories. Such hierarchical diagrams were removed from Japanese textbooks after various studies in the 1990s revealed that peasants, craftsmen, and merchants were in fact equal and merely social categories. Successive shoguns held the highest or near-highest court ranks, higher than most court nobles. (from History of Japan)
Image 25Relief map of the land and the seabed of Japan. It shows the surface and underwater terrain of the Japanese archipelago. (from Geography of Japan)
Image 39Hōryū-ji is widely known to be the oldest wooden architecture existing in the world. (from Culture of Japan)
Image 40The Kuril Islands, with their Russian names. The borders of the Treaty of Shimoda (1855) and the Treaty of St. Petersburg (1875) are shown in red. Currently, all islands northeast of Hokkaido are administered by Russia. (from Geography of Japan)
Image 46Mount Aso 4 pyroclastic flow and the spread of Aso 4 tephra (90,000 to 85,000 years ago). The pyroclastic flow reached almost the whole area of Kyushu, and volcanic ash was deposited of 15 cm in a wide area from Kyushu to southern Hokkaido. (from Geography of Japan)
Image 47Japanese experts inspect the scene of the alleged railway sabotage on South Manchurian Railway that led to the Mukden Incident and the Japanese occupation of Manchuria. (from History of Japan)
Image 63Minamoto no Yoritomo was the founder of the Kamakura shogunate in 1192. This was the first military government in which the shogun with the samurai were the de facto rulers of Japan. (from History of Japan)
Image 80Samurai could kill a commoner for the slightest insult and were widely feared by the Japanese population. Edo period, 1798 (from History of Japan)
Image 81Japan in 1582, showing territory conquered by Oda Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi in gray (from History of Japan)
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