1. ★ c. 14,000 BCE Jomon pottery begins
2. c. 5500 BCE Sannai-Maruyama settled
3. ★ c. 1000 BCE Wet rice cultivation arrives
4. c. 300 BCE Yoshinogari grows into a moated town
5. 57 CE Chinese court grants a gold seal
6. ★ 239 CE Queen Himiko sends envoys to Wei
7. c. 300 Keyhole tombs spread
8. c. 391 Campaigns on the Korean peninsula
9. ★ 538 Buddhism reaches the court
10. 587 The Soga defeat the Mononobe
11. 604 The Seventeen-Article Constitution
12. 607 Envoys sent to Sui China
13. ★ 645 The Taika Reform
14. 663 Defeat at the Baekgang River
15. 701 The Taiho Code
16. ★ 710 Capital moves to Nara
17. 712 The Kojiki compiled
18. ★ 752 The Great Buddha of Todai-ji dedicated
19. ★ 794 Capital moves to Heian-kyo
20. ★ 894 Embassies to China halted
21. c. 995 The Fujiwara at their height
22. ★ c. 1008 The Tale of Genji written
23. 1052 The age of mappo begins
24. 1156 The Hogen Disturbance
25. ★ 1180 The Genpei War begins
26. ★ 1185 Taira destroyed at Dan-no-ura
27. ★ 1192 Minamoto no Yoritomo becomes shogun
28. 1221 The Jokyu War
29. 1232 The Goseibai Shikimoku
30. 1253 Nichiren begins preaching
31. ★ 1274 First Mongol invasion
32. ★ 1281 Second Mongol invasion repelled
33. ★ 1333 The Kamakura shogunate falls
34. 1336 The Ashikaga take power
35. 1397 The Golden Pavilion built
36. 1404 Tally trade with Ming China
37. ★ 1467 The Onin War begins
38. 1488 Ikko-ikki seize Kaga province
39. ★ 1543 Portuguese arrive with firearms
40. 1549 Francis Xavier lands at Kagoshima
41. 1560 Oda Nobunaga wins at Okehazama
42. 1571 Mount Hiei burned
43. ★ 1575 Volley fire at Nagashino
44. ★ 1582 Nobunaga killed at Honno-ji
45. ★ 1588 The sword hunt
46. ★ 1592 Invasion of Korea
47. 1597 The twenty-six martyrs of Nagasaki
48. ★ 1600 Tokugawa Ieyasu wins at Sekigahara
49. ★ 1603 The Tokugawa shogunate founded
50. 1615 Osaka Castle falls
51. ★ 1635 Alternate attendance made compulsory
52. ★ 1637 The Shimabara Rebellion
53. ★ 1639 Sakoku: the country closed
54. 1657 The Great Fire of Meireki
55. c. 1690 Genroku culture flourishes
56. 1703 The forty-seven ronin
57. 1720 The ban on Western books relaxed
58. 1774 A Dutch anatomy text translated
59. 1782 The Tenmei famine
60. 1825 Order to drive off foreign ships
61. ★ 1853 Perry's black ships arrive
62. 1854 The Convention of Kanagawa
63. 1860 Ii Naosuke assassinated
64. 1863 Bombardment of Kagoshima
65. 1866 The Satsuma-Choshu alliance
66. ★ 1867 The shogun resigns
67. ★ 1868 The Meiji Restoration
68. 1869 The Boshin War ends at Hakodate
69. 1871 The domains abolished
70. 1872 Compulsory education proclaimed
71. ★ 1873 Conscription and the land tax
72. ★ 1877 The Satsuma Rebellion
73. 1879 The Ryukyu Kingdom annexed
74. ★ 1889 The Meiji Constitution
75. ★ 1894 War with Qing China
76. 1895 The Triple Intervention
77. 1899 The Ainu protection act
78. 1902 The Anglo-Japanese Alliance
79. 1904 War with Russia
80. ★ 1905 Victory at Tsushima
81. ★ 1910 Korea annexed
82. 1911 Tariff autonomy regained
83. 1912 The Taisho era begins
84. 1914 Japan enters the First World War
85. 1918 The rice riots
86. 1919 The racial equality proposal rejected
87. ★ 1923 The Great Kanto Earthquake
88. 1925 Universal male suffrage and the Peace Preservation Law
89. 1927 The Showa financial crisis
90. ★ 1931 The Manchurian Incident
91. 1932 Prime Minister Inukai assassinated
92. 1933 Japan leaves the League of Nations
93. ★ 1936 The February 26 Incident
94. ★ 1937 Full-scale war with China
95. ★ December 1937 The Nanjing Massacre
96. 1940 The Tripartite Pact
97. ★ December 1941 Pearl Harbor
98. ★ June 1942 Defeat at Midway
99. July 1944 The fall of Saipan
100. ★ March 1945 The firebombing of Tokyo
101. June 1945 The Battle of Okinawa ends
102. ★ 6 August 1945 Hiroshima
103. ★ 9 August 1945 Nagasaki
104. ★ 15 August 1945 The emperor broadcasts surrender
105. ★ 1946 The new constitution
106. 1947 Land reform and the zaibatsu broken up
107. ★ 1951 The San Francisco Peace Treaty
108. 1955 The Liberal Democratic Party formed
109. 1960 Protests against the security treaty
110. ★ 1964 The Tokyo Olympics
111. 1968 Second-largest economy in the world
112. ★ 1972 Okinawa returned
113. 1973 The oil shock
114. 1985 The Plaza Accord
115. 1989 The Showa era ends at the market peak
116. ★ 1991 The bubble bursts
117. 1995 The Kobe earthquake and the sarin attack
118. 2009 The LDP loses power
119. ★ 2011 Tohoku earthquake and Fukushima
120. 2012 Abenomics begins
121. 2019 The Reiwa era begins
122. 2022 Shinzo Abe assassinated
123. 2024 The Nikkei finally passes its 1989 peak