| Shimoda is located south of the Izu peninsula. The events that took place there in 1854 are nothing less than Japan's first opening of the outside world after more than 200 years of Sakoku policy of isolationism. It also provoked the subsequent fall of the millenarian military regime of the Shogun, and the uncanny return of the Emperor as ruler of the country during the Meiji restoration (1868). |
