And the rest . . . is history

Having been given a mission by United States President Millard Fillmore in 1852, and having been pecking away at Asian diplomacy in various places, and having made overtures to the Edo powers in 1853, Commodore Matthew C. Perry was given permission to land at Kanagawa near what is now Yokohama, on 8 March 1854.  During the following weeks he and his counterparts in Edo worked out what is called the Treaty of Kanagawa, opening Japan to American trade.

Ostensibly about trade in the general sense, the mission was largely about coal, since this was the dawn of the steamship era.  Be that as it may, trade commenced.

Yeah there were some speed bumps on the road to understanding, but now the people of Japan even beat us in baseball sometimes, which is the definition of  friends.

So we owe it to Commodore Perry and President Fillmore that we now have Daiso, Ghibli movies, manga, Akitas, sushi, red bean buns, and a host of other wonders!    ^_^ 

Hiroshima Day

The atomic bombs made my life possible.  At the time Truman gave the go-ahead, my father was on an LST in the Pacific, preparing for the invasion of the Japanese home islands.

The use of the atomic bombs saved lives, compared to anticipated casualties from the planned invasion.

The tyranny of the government of Imperial Japan was the cause of so much suffering.

Yes those photos are ghastly.  But every time Hiroshima Day rolls around I thank the One True God® that the bombs were used and the surrender was secured.

Nodachi Cuts Twenty-six Tatami Mats With One Blow

"Sherwood Fair, Bruce Baldwin cuts 26 mats to take the world record in the Nodachi class sword. February 24th 2013" -- posted by William Lowry on YouTube, February 25, 2013.

Nice slice.  And it doesn't look like he was even using the blade to its greatest advantage either in slashing or in tip speed. 

Commodore Perry Opens Japan to the World

That's Commodore Perry, in the center

On this day in 1854, Commodore (later Rear Admiral) Matthew Calbraith Perry sailed back to Yokohama to receive the reply to his earlier missive, which reply led in a few weeks to the signing of the Convention of Kanagawa, opening the archipelago to general trade with the rest of the world.

The agreement was the culmination of decades of effort.  In fact, "opening of trade" is a bit of a misnomer because ships under the Dutch flag had been accepted at Nagasaki since 1797.

However, Perry realized through a long Navy career that it pays to toot your own horn.  History is written by the victors, they say.  In this case, the victor is also defined by the history, in the form of Perry's book.  It's available at archive.com.  Volume 1 is 584 pages.  Not a lot of laughs, I bet.

Here is part of a random page from Volume One