From Today I Found Out.

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2023 marked the 100-year anniversary of an event so tragic and calamitous that it changed world history to a frightening degree, helping to push Japan to WWII.

Since the 17th century, the island nation of Japan had pursued a policy of seclusion, severely limiting foreign contact in an effort to preserve its traditions and identity. This policy was forcibly challenged in 1853 when Commodore Matthew Perry, acting under direct orders from American President Millard Fillmore, sailed an armed fleet into Uraga, near the entrance to Japan’s Edo Bay and, by a mixture of threats and diplomacy, demanded access. The impetus for Perry’s mission was partly the need to secure increasing American commerce in the area, including things like large numbers of whaling ships off Japan’s coast. There was also growing pressure resulting from European nation’s increasing monopolization of Asian coalfields. In short, the U.S. did not want to be left behind. On top of this, for some time up to this point, shipwrecked foreign sailors who found themselves landing in Japan were either executed or imprisoned. Perry was under orders to secure the release of anyone in the latter category. Further, like many a colonial power before them, America believed it had both a mission and a right to bring modernity and Christianity to perceived so-called ‘backward’ nations.

And so it was that Perry set sail and, fortuitously, at the time of his arrival, Tokugawa Leyoshi, Japan’s ruling shōgun, was incapacitated through illness. The resultant government indecision, together with the presence of formidable American firepower, led to a fateful decision: Perry was allowed to land at Kurihama. This period is often referred to as ‘the opening of Japan.’ For better or worse, the country would never be the same again….

Author: Chris Wheatley
Editor: Daven Hiskey
Host: Simon Whistler
Producer: Pacience Hiskey

0:00 Intro
3:56 Crossroads
4:67 Disaster
8:42 Fire Tornadoes
10:02 It Gets Worse
12:38 Devine Punishment
14:21 The Path to War