Located at the head of Tokyo Bay, Tokyo is part of the Kantō region on the central coast of Honshu, Japan's largest island. Tokyo serves as Japan's economic center and the seat of both the Japanese government and the Emperor of Japan. The Tokyo Metropolitan Government administers Tokyo's central 23 special wards (which formerly made up Tokyo City), various commuter towns and suburbs in its western area, and two outlying island chains known as the Tokyo Islands. Despite most of the world recognising Tokyo as a city, since 1943 its governing structure has been more akin to a prefecture, with an accompanying Governor and Assembly taking precedence over the smaller municipal governments which make up the metropolis. Notable special wards in Tokyo include Chiyoda, the site of the National Diet Building and the Tokyo Imperial Palace, Shinjuku, the city's administrative center, and Shibuya, a commercial, cultural, and business hub in the city.
The University of Tokyo (東京大学, Tōkyō daigaku, abbreviated as Tōdai in Japanese and UTokyo in English) is a publicresearch university in Bunkyō, Tokyo, Japan. Founded in 1877 as the nation's first modern university by the merger of several pre-westernisation era institutions, its direct predecessors include the Tenmongata (founded in 1684) and the Shoheizaka Institute.
Although established under its current name, the university was renamed Imperial University (帝國大學, Teikoku daigaku) in 1886 and was further retitled Tokyo Imperial University (東京帝國大學, Tōkyō teikoku daigaku) to distinguish it from other imperial universities established later. It served under this name until the official dissolution of the Empire of Japan in 1947, when it reverted to its original name. Since its founding, UTokyo has maintained its status as the country's premier higher educational institution, with its educational and research standards consistently recognised as the best in the country across almost all fields it covers. (Full article...)
Image 15A social hierarchy chart based on old academic theories. Such hierarchical diagrams were removed from Japanese textbooks after various studies in the 1990s revealed that peasants, craftsmen, and merchants were in fact equal and merely social categories. Successive shoguns held the highest or near-highest court ranks, higher than most court nobles. (from History of Tokyo)
Image 42The five-story pagoda of Kan'ei-ji, which was constructed during the reign of Tokugawa Hidetada and required the building of the Kimon (Devil's Gate) (from History of Tokyo)
Image 54Picture of the Upper Class, a c. 1794–1795 painting by Utamaro. The woman on the left is lower in class than the woman on the right, who wears more colorful clothes (from History of Tokyo)
... that Allen Ravenstine, who used a synthesizer to emulate the sound of an airplane's engine on "30 Seconds Over Tokyo", later became an airline pilot?
... that pianist Fujita Haruko, one of the first 19 female students enrolled at the University of Tokyo, was taught by Leo Sirota, who was once called the "god of piano"?