Shinya Yamanaka is a Japanese physician and stem cell researcher. In 2006, he and his team generated Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells - from adult mouse fibroblasts. In 2007, he and his team were able to generate Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell...

Shigeru Miyamoto is a Japanese video game designer and producer. He is best known as the creator of some of the best-selling, most critically acclaimed, most enduring, and most influential games and franchises of all time. Miyamoto join...

Yokoi was one of the most important figures in the history of the Nintendo video game company. While employed there, Yokoi designed the Game Boy handheld game console and improved the D-Pad, the cross-shaped multi-directional input device f...

Momofuku Ando, born Go Pek-Hok, was an inventor and businessman who founded Nissin Food Products Co., Ltd. He is known as the inventor of instant noodles (ramen noodles) and the creator of the brands Top Ramen and Cup Noodles....

Hirohito, the Showa Emperor, reigned over Japan from 1926 to 1989. He was known in the West by his given name Hirohito (he had no surname). He was the 124th Emperor of Japan. His reign was the longest of all Japanese emperors, and oversaw t...

Hideki Tojo was a general of the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA), the leader of the Imperial Rule Assistance Association, and the 27th Prime Minister of Japan during much of World War II, from October 17, 1941, to July 22, 1944. As Prime Minis...

Morihei Ueshiba was a famous martial artist and founder of the Japanese martial art of aikido. He is often referred to as Kaiso, meaning "founder", or Osensei, "Great Teacher". Ueshiba is remembered by his pupils as a master of the marti...

Douglas MacArthur is a major figure in the US military and diplomatic history of WWII and post-WWII. As general of the army, he helped conquer the Japanese Empire and played a major role in rebuilding the nation and drafting its first democ...

Emperor Meiji or Meiji the Great was the 122nd Emperor of Japan according to the traditional order of succession, reigning from February 3, 1867 until his death on July 30, 1912. He presided over a time of rapid change in the Empire of Japa...

Saigo Takamori was one of the most influential samurai in Japanese history, living during the late Edo Period and early Meiji Era. He has been dubbed the last true samurai. He was born Saigo Kokichi, and received the given name Takamori in...

Philipp Franz Balthasar von Siebold was a German physician, botanist, and traveler. He taught some pupils Western medicine in Japan. He achieved prominence for his study of Japanese flora and fauna, and was the father of female Japanese doc...

Matthew Calbraith Perry was a Commodore of the U.S. Navy and commanded a number of ships. He served in several wars, most notably in the Mexican-American War and the War of 1812. He played a leading role in the opening of Japan to the West...

Katsushika Hokusai was a Japanese artist, ukiyo-e painter and printmaker of the Edo period. In his time, he was Japan's leading expert on Chinese painting. Born in Edo (now Tokyo), Hokusai is best-known as author of the woodblock print seri...

Jacques Specx was a Dutch merchant, who founded the trade on Japan and Korea in 1609. Jacques Specx received the support of William Adams to obtain extensive trading rights from the Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu on August 24, 1609, which allowed h...

Hasekura Rokuemon Tsunenaga (or "Francisco Felipe Faxicura", as he was baptized in Spain) was a Japanese samurai and retainer of Date Masamune, the daimyo of Sendai. In the years 1613 through 1620, Hasekura headed a diplomatic mission to...