WORLD HISTORY

Detailed explanation-1: -The first Europeans to arrive in Japan did so by accident rather than design. In 1543 a Portuguese ship was blown off course by a typhoon, shipwrecking the sailors on the island of Tanegashima, off the south-west tip of Japan.

Detailed explanation-2: -The reason for this is that Japan for the greater part of the Edo-period (1600 – 1868) maintained a policy of isolation, which greatly restricted foreign trade. Nagasaki was one of the few exceptions during this period. In this city foreign trade was allowed, albeit under heavy restrictions and regulations.

Detailed explanation-3: -Japan’s first encounter with Western colonialism was with Portugal in the mid-sixteenth century. The Portuguese brought Catholicism and the new technology of gun and gunpowder into Japan. The latter changed the way samurai rulers fought wars, and accelerated the process of national unification.

Detailed explanation-4: -Japan’s first contact with the West occurred in 1542, when a Portuguese ship headed for China was blown off course and landed in Japan.

Detailed explanation-5: -Faced with severe shortages of oil and other natural resources and driven by the ambition to displace the United States as the dominant Pacific power, Japan decided to attack the United States and British forces in Asia and seize the resources of Southeast Asia.