The Boshin War was a civil war in Japan, fought from 1868 to 1869
between forces of the ruling Tokugawa shogunate and those seeking to
return political power to the imperial court. The war found its
origins in dissatisfaction among many nobles and young samurai with
the Shogunate's handling of foreigners following the opening of Japan
the prior decade. An alliance of southern samurai and court officials
secured the cooperation of the young Emperor Meiji, who declared the
abolition of the two-hundred-year-old Shogunate. Military movements by
imperial forces and partisan violence in Edo led Tokugawa Yoshinobu,
the sitting shogun, to launch a military campaign to seize the
emperor's court at Kyoto. The military tide rapidly turned in favor of
the smaller but relatively modernized imperial faction, and after a
series of battles culminating in the surrender of Edo, Yoshinobu
personally surrendered. The Tokugawa remnant retreated to northern
HonshÅ« and later to HokkaidÅ, where they founded the Ezo republic.
Defeat at the Battle of Hakodate broke this last holdout and left the
imperial rule supreme throughout the whole of Japan, completing the
military phase of the Meiji Restoration. Around 120,000 men were
mobilized during the conflict, and of these about 3,500 were killed.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boshin_War
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1787:
German-born British astronomer and composer William Herschel
discovered the Uranian moons Oberon and Titania. They were later named
by his son John after the King and the Queen of the Faeries from
William Shakespeare's play A Midsummer Night's Dream, respectively.
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oberon_%28moon%29)
1922:
Insulin was first administered to a human patient with diabetes at
the Toronto General Hospital in Toronto, Canada.
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insulin)
1923:
Troops from France and Belgium invaded the Ruhr Area to force the
German Weimar Republic to pay its reparation payments in the aftermath
of World War I.
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupation_of_the_Ruhr)
1964:
In a landmark report, U.S. Surgeon General Luther Leonidas Terry
issued the warning that smoking may be hazardous for one's health,
concluding that it has a causative role in lung cancer, chronic
bronchitis, emphysema, and other illnesses.
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luther_Leonidas_Terry)
1986:
The Gateway Bridge in Brisbane, Australia, at the time the longest
prestressed concrete free cantilever bridge in the world, opened.
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gateway_Bridge%2C_Brisbane)
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Wiktionary's Word of the day:
malodorous: Having a bad odor.
(
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/malodorous)
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Wikiquote of the day:
I do indeed disbelieve that we or any other mortal men can attain on a
given day to absolutely incorrigible and unimprovable truth about such
matters of fact as those with which religions deal. But I reject this
dogmatic ideal not out of a perverse delight in intellectual
instability. I am no lover of disorder and doubt as such. Rather do I
fear to lose truth by this pretension to possess it already wholly. --
William James
(
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/William_James)