Western Civilization II / Unit 13 WC2 1223 short lesson, about 20 seconds
Japan: Perry, Meiji, and Victory Over Russia, 1905
Captions available
The idea
Commodore Perry's gunboats entered Edo Bay in eighteen fifty-three and forced Japan open. The shogunate collapsed, and the Meiji Restoration of eighteen sixty-eight westernized fast: samurai privileges abolished, factories, a modern army and navy. Japan took Korea and Manchuria and beat Russia in nineteen oh-five.
In practice
Beating Europe at its own game, the anchor's phrase.
Where people slip
An authoritarian state with a symbolic emperor.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
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