The Meiji Restoration of Japan

The Japanese have always held themselves to be of a superior lineage than other cultures. It's this kind of pride over themselves that led them to ban Christianity in 1597, and kill those who were found to be practicing Catholicism in the following decades. The Japanese shut themselves out from the outside world and for 250 years lived in peace and prosperity. The Japanese felt that they had nothing to learn from the barbaric people of the west but they did not know how much European technology had advanced.
Commodore Matthew Perry then arrived on the coasts of Japan to “negotiate” opening trade relations with the United States, but of course the Japanese refused, so they ended up bullying them into doing it with their military might. Even so the Japanese were impressed with these new aged weapons, one cannon could take out several of their most fiercest samurai. The Japanese ended up being controlled by the Europeans and Americans which had forced Japan to sign treaties that limited its control over their own foreign trade and any crimes be committed tried in a western court not Japanese.
Eventually, with the death of the emperor in 1912, Japan began regaining control over their area's again. Japan had finally caught up with modern times and established a highly centralized, bureaucratic government, a constitution establishing an elected parliament, a well-developed transport and communication system, a highly educated population free of feudal class restrictions, an established and rapidly growing industrial sector based on the latest technology, and a powerful army and navy.


Japan is an archipelago, which is is a chain or cluster of
islands that is formed tectonically.