This week: political infighting about purple robes and what it can tell us about Buddhism, political power, and the relationship…
When Washington State went dry, one baby-faced cop decided to start moonlighting as a bootlegger. His alcohol empire involved crooked mayors, bootlegging conventions, airplane engines strapped to boats, and a conspiracy theory about secret messages for rum-runners hidden inside children’s bedtime stories.
This week: the story of Tsuneno, a commoner whose social status was very different from that of Lady Nijo and…
This week, the tale of Ogimachi Machiko–the aristocrat whose literary descriptions of her life in a samurai family became one…
On one fateful week in 1902, Old Country systems of oversight of meat production met New Country price collusion. With the price of kosher meat skyrocketing in New York City and the Jewish population entering its hangriest period of the year, tensions spilled over into a pandemonium involving naked butchers, flying fish, and cops getting slapped in the face with raw liver.
This week: in 1940, a manuscript lost for over 600 years is recovered from the archives of the Imperial family.…
This week: how has the JMSDF gone from an afterthought to a central part of Japan’s security planning? Sources Patalano,…
A man, a plan, a violation of controlled airspace. Larry Walters was an ordinary truck driver, but he hatched an extraordinary scheme to take to the sky in a lawn chair tied to weather balloons. His stunt made international headlines, inspired movies, and launched an extreme sport.
This week: the start of a two part series on the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Forces. Today: how did Japan’s current…
This week, the biography of one of the most unusual figures of Bakumatsu Japan: the peasant Matsuo Taseko, whose career…








