Momoyama
1573-1615

• Around 1600 puppet theatre with
  storytelling, Shamisen music,
  and puppets began.

• In 1603, the first performance of Kabuki in recorded history.

• Tokugawa Ieyasu won the Battle of Sekigahara in 1600.
• In 1603,Tokugawa family obtained shogunate in Japan and kept it.

Edo
1615-1868

• Puppet theatre gained success in the early
  Edo period.
• Takemoto Gidayu opened his own theatre called Takemoto-za in 1684 in Osaka.
• Chikamatsu Monzaemon joined Gidayu
  writing puppet plays about historical dramas and the common merchant in the late 17th Century.
• Another theatre opened, not long after the Takemoto-za, called Toyotake-za.
• In 1703, Chikamatsu’s Sonezaki Shinju was performed with the puppet operator in complete view of the audience.
• In 1727, puppets were developed with moving eyes and mouth.
• In 1728, the yuka (an auxiliary stage) became the permanent location for the musician and the chanter/storyteller.
• The three-man puppet manipulation system was developed in 1734.
• Quickly following the change in system the puppets were enlarged from 2 feet tall to anywhere between 2 ˝ to 4 feet tall).
• Late 1770's Bunraku lost popularity as many prominent leaders died.
• Uemura Bunrakuken developed a puppet school in 1789 in Osaka.
• Early 1800s the Takemoto-za and the Toyotake-za closed.
• In 1805, Bunrakuken organized a puppet troupe of students.
• In 1842, one of Bunrakuken’s descendents built a puppet theatre for his troupe.

• In 1682, Ihara Saikaku wrote The Life of a Man Who Lived for Love (Koshoku ichidai otoko).
• 1689 Matsuo Basho wrote his first refined haiku.
• Between 1746 and 1748, the Takemoto-za theatre produced three classics that are performed to this day: Sugawara Denju Tenarai Kagami (The Secret of Sugawara’s Calligraphy), Yoshitsune Senbon-zakura (Yoshitsune and the Thousand Cherry Trees, and Kanadehon Chushingura (The Treasure of Loyal Retainers).
• In 1765, an artist, Suzuki Harunobu, first designed woodblock prints to use multiple colors to create brocade prints.
• Motoori Norinaga wrote Japan's earliest literary classic in 1798.
• Ehon Taikoki premiered in 1799 has been labeled “the last Bunraku classic.”
• In 1834, Ando Hiroshige completed his Fifty-three Stations of the Tokaido.

• An officially controlled and sanctioned pleasure district is established in 1617.
• In 1629, the shogun forbade women to appear on stage.
• All Westerners were expelled from Japan in 1639.
• In 1736,Chi-en Lung became Emperor of China.
• Ishege became Shogun of Japan in 1745.
• In 1853, Commodore Matthew Perry brought a request to Japan to establish trade and diplomatic ties with the United States.
• The shogunate signed the Harris Treaty in 1856 that allowed
  U.S. trade at eight
  Japanese ports.
• The Charter Oath (Gokajo no Goseimon) and Constitution (Seitaisho) was signed in 1868 by Emperor Meiji to create a new government.

• In 1872, Bunrakuken's theatre’s name changed to Bunraku-za.
• Toward the end of the 1800s, "Bunraku” came to represent all ningyo joruri (puppet theatre) that is of the traditional Osaka style of puppetry.

• In 1876, the Meiji government established the Technical Fine Arts School and taught Japanese students techniques of the Western World.
• Ernest Fenollosa and Okakura Kakuzo, revived domestic interest in Japanese art in 1877.
• Futabatei Shimei published Floating Cloud (Ukigumo), Japan's first modern novel between 1887-1889.

• Japan established an embassy in the United States in 1860.
• In 1869, the capital moved to Edo (present-day Tokyo).
• In 1873, Japan switched from the lunar calendar to the Western calendar.
• In 1894, The Sino-Japanese War began.
• In 1895, Japan won the Sino-Japanese War.

• The first animated film developed in Japan in 1916.

• Japan entered World
  War I in 1914.
• In 1923, the Center of Tokyo and Yokohama were destroyed by an earthquake.
• In 1925, all male citizens received the right to vote.

• Bunraku-za burned in 1926, and after World War II, it was rebuilt.
• Japanese government deemed the Osaka Bunraku Troupe an “important national cultural asset” in 1955.
• In 1966, a structure was built to house the National Theatre of Japan in Tokyo.
• In 1984, the National Bunraku Theatre of Japan opened, in Osaka, housing the Osaka Bunraku Troupe, which carries the official “The Bunraku Troupe” name.

• Suzuki Daisetsu published Essays in Zen Buddhism in 1927.
• In 1953, Architect Murano Togo completed the World Peace Memorial Cathedral in Hiroshima.
• The film Seven Samurai was announced by Director Kurosawa Akira in 1954.
• In 1959, Kinjiki, a shocking, violent ballet was performed.
• A Nobel Prize for literature was awarded to a Japanese author for the first time in 1968.
• In 1983, the National Museum of Japanese History opened.

• In 1937, the Sino-Japanese War was declared.
• Japan joined the Access Powers in 1940.
• Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941.
• From 1945-1952 Japan was occupied by a foreign power for the first time in history.
• In 1955, the liberal democratic party was formed.
• Japan became a member of the United Nations in 1956.
• A Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Prime Minister Sato Eisaku in 1974 for peace relations between Japan and South Korea.

• To this day, Bunraku performances occur in Tokyo and Osaka four times a year.

• In 1994, Oe Kenzaburo won the Nobel Prize for literature.