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Japan Yesterday
How Phil Knight used Japan to launch Nike
On Nov. 22, 1962, Phil Knight, 24, sat on a plane bound for Tokyo. Instead of learning Japanese, Knight had spent the last 10 weeks with a friend in Hawaii, selling encyclopedias door to door, surfing and frequenting dive bars. He’d had better luck selling securities so, after earning a… Read
Princess Diana turns heads in 1986 Japan
Two days before arriving in Osaka, Diana, Princess of Wales (1961-1997), fainted. They had been walking for hours, from stand to stand, at the Expo ’86 World Fair in Vancouver, Canada. Finally, at the California Pavilion exhibit, Diana could not take another step. She placed her hand on Prince Charles’s… Read
Lafcadio Hearn becomes Koizumi Yakumo in 1890s Japan
If you ask your Japanese friend about writer Lafcadio Hearn (1850-1904), they might pause for a moment and say, “Who?” But after telling them a few details — that’d he’d traveled to Yokohama in April 1890 and spent the next 14 years writing ghost stories and folk tales (such as… Read
Queen Elizabeth II avoids discussing the war with Emperor Hirohito during 1975 Japan visit
It’s called shunto in Japan, or the spring labor offensive, when wages and raises for the nation’s workers are being negotiated, and Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip had flown to Japan right smack in the middle of a nationwide transport strike in 1975. The queen and her husband had… Read
U.S. President Gerald Ford's historic visit to Japan in 1974
Ever since the formal end of World War II, American presidents had tried to be the first to visit Japan while in office. In April 1946, it was reported via the International News Service (INS) that Harry S. Truman was considering a brief July visit to Occupation-era Japan since he… Read
The Beatles storm the Nippon Budokan in Tokyo in 1966
At 3:40 a.m. on June 30, 1966, the JAL plane carrying John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr landed at Haneda airport after being delayed by Typhoon Kit. JAL’s marketing division had been ready for this moment. Before the four young men could step off the plane, they… Read
William Elliot Griffis resists temptation in feudal 1871 Japan
In 1871, Japan was still being introduced to the United States as a country with an actual civilization. “The population of Japan,” wrote a Missouri Republican journalist in September 1871, “has been variously estimated from twenty-five to forty million. Hitherto we have had no reliable statistics upon which to base… Read
Marian Anderson sings for the Empress of Japan in 1953
On April 18, 1953, Bob Krauss, writing for the Honolulu Advertiser, attended a Marian Anderson concert. Tickets had been sold out for weeks, and as Krauss listened to Anderson, a contralto, he couldn’t help but become spellbound as she sang. “What you notice first are her eyes. They’re like windows… Read
Robert Kennedy confronts communist hecklers at Waseda University in 1962
On Feb. 4, 1962, 36-year-old U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy and his wife Ethel stepped off their plane at Haneda International Airport, the start of a six-day trip. During their flight, they’d practiced a welcome speech in Japanese, tutored by U.S. Ambassador to Japan Edwin O. Reischauer, who spoke… Read
Commodore Perry’s black ships deliver a letter to Japan in July 1853
It wasn’t a surprise. As early as 1852, a Dutch agent in Nagasaki had given a report to high-level Japanese officials describing an expedition led by Matthew Calbraith Perry, consisting of “two steamships and two other ships.” Japan’s bakufu — the shogunate government in power for the last seven centuries… Read
