Samurai Warrior riding a horse. A Japanese painting on silk, in a traditional Japanese style

Japan

After Hiroshima: the atomic plague

The Enola Gay aircraft, which dropped the first atomic bomb of the Second World War on Hiroshima.

Second World War

Was the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the US in WW2 justified?

A Japanese woodblock print, c1855, depicting the mythological giant catfish Namazu, and the god Takemikazuchi subduing it with the kaname-ishi stone (Photo by Pictures From History/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

General History

Why is a mythical catfish to blame for earthquakes in Japan?

History's greatest cities: Tokyo

An African samurai: the tall, strong African man who acquired the name Yasuke in Japan was at first an object of curiosity but soon became a prized samurai warrior serving a powerful warlord in the violent intrigues that wracked the country during that volatile era. ((Illustration by Lynn Hatzius for BBC World Histories)

Who is Yasuke? The true story of the African who became Japan's first black samurai

Video podcastTokyo’s devastating 1923 earthquake

William Adams meets Tokugawa Ieyasu; inset Cosmo Jarvis as John Blackthrone in Shogun

The real John Blackthorne in Shōgun: the true story of samurai William Adams, the first Englishman in Japan

Swathes of Tokyo lie in ruins after the Great Kantō Earthquake on 1 September 1923

The Great Kantō earthquake: a 1923 disaster that left Tokyo in ruins

A view of the devastation caused by the atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima in Japan on 6 August 1945, a bombed-out building in the foreground

Second World War

What happened to Hiroshima after it was bombed in 1945? How many people died?

Firemen tackling a blitz fire at St Paul's Cathedral, London

Second World War

WW2 timeline: 20 important dates and milestones you need to know

Pearl HarborEpisode 3

Pearl HarborEpisode 2

The battleship USS California following the attack at Pearl Harbor

Second World War

Pearl Harbor: 12 facts about the surprise attack on the US Pacific Fleet

A gathering storm: why did Japan attack Pearl Harbor in 1941?

Pearl HarborEpisode 1

Workers package Chicken Ramen, the first mass-produced instant noodles, in a factory in Japan, c1960

The age of noodles: Momofuku Ando and the rise of ramen in post-war Japan

From Meiji to modernity: how Japan reinvented itself through the 20th century

VJ Day: turning the tide in the east

Scientists Frederic Joliot-Curie and his wife, Irene, at work in their Paris laboratory in December 1932. The couple were among a wide-ranging group of scientists whose work paved the way for the atomic bomb. (Photo by Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images)

Hiroshima: the race to the atomic bomb

How the 1964 Tokyo Olympics redefined Japan

Medal winners on a podium

Q&AWho won the first Olympic medal? And what was the prize before that?

Tokyo Olympics 1964: Yoshinori Sakai prepares to light the Olympic cauldron during the opening ceremony. Born on the day that the first atomic bomb fell on Hiroshima, he was a symbol of Japan’s postwar reconstruction and peace

Tokyo Olympics 1964: the Games that defined Japan

Samurai: everything you wanted to know

US marines advance up Iwo Jima's beaches

Second World War

The battle for Iwo Jima: why did it happen and why was it so hard fought?

Japan and the west

Chris Harding answers questions on the history of Japan

The history of Japan: everything you wanted to know

A group of American soldiers captured by the Japanese during the Battle of Java, 1942 (Photo by Getty Images)

Prisoners of the Japanese

WW2 surrender signed, 2 September 1945

Second World War

How and when did WW2 end?

Hiroshima.

Second World War

The end of WW2: 5 articles you can read right now

This photo dated 1948 shows the devastated city of Hiroshima some three years after the US dropped an atomic bomb on the city on 6 August 1945, at the end of World War 2. Around 140,000 people, or more than half of Hiroshima's population at the time, died in the first atomic bombing – with another 70,000 people perishing in the bomb dropped over Nagasaki 9 August 1945. (Photo credit should read AFP/AFP/Getty Images)

In pictures: the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki